(19.1.2017) According to a police report, the siblings had received warning that they were to be arrested, and as police broke into their office, Francesca destroyed a handful of USB keys and data cards.

The entire setup, however, looks “really strange [and] nothing makes sense,” said Vicente Diaz, principal security researcher at the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky. It is unusual, he said, for two people in their forties, leading good lives with steady jobs, apparently to venture into the murky world of cybercriminality.