Mohamed Merah, a self-confessed Alqeda member of Algerian origin responsible for the murder of three off duty paratroopers, one Jewish Rabbi and three children going to school was found by French detectives after scrutinising how many people had visited an online advertisement offering a motorcycle for sale that was used to lure the first victim into a mortal trap where he was shot dead.
Cypercops found 580 people had visited the advertisement, they narrowed it down to a list of computer IPs near the city where the first murder took place and its surroundings, then compiled an even shorter list with IPs registered to known terrorist sympathisers until they came across Mohamed Merah brother’s computer IP, whom was also a well known Islamic extremist.
The police also had other leads like a mechanic reporting that someone (Mohamed Merah’s brother) had enquired on how to get rid of a motorcycle GPS tracking device which description coincided with that of the get away vehicle.
Source: French newspaper LeMonde
This (German) article (https://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/562/1/lang,de/) claims that it wasn’t the advertisement but the GPS-removal that enabled the cops to find Mehra. The article states that the IP-thing was found out days before Mehra’s brother inquired on the GPS-removal which was the main lead in the end. The article has lots of french sources, maybe you are able to understand them better than I am.
I think the main thing to note here is: The police would have found Mehra WITHOUT data preservation. This is (again) NOT an example that that spying on millions and millions of people that didn’t do anything illigal is necessary (even if lots of „politicians“ will claim otherwise and use this as an example).
Hello,
I don’t know if the main lead was the GPS tracker on the Yamaha motorbike or the computer IP logs left on the server, but it seems pretty certain that French police used both lines of investigation. Thank you for your contribution.
hacker10