Alias:

Jay R. Echouafni

Saad Echouafni, head of a satellite communications company, is wanted in Los Angeles, California for allegedly hiring computer hackers to launch attacks against his company's competitors. On August 25, 2004, Echouafni was indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles in connection with the first successful investigation of a large-scale distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) used for a commercial purpose in the United States. In a DDOS, a multitude of compromised systems attack a single target causing a sustained denial of service for its customers. The investigation, codenamed Operation Cyberslam, was initiated in 2003 when a large-digital video recorder vendor based in Los Angeles reported a series of crippling denial of service attacks that effectively halted its business for nearly two weeks. That business, as well as others both private and government in the United States, were temporarily disrupted by these attacks which resulted in losses ranging from $200,000 to over $1 million.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR THE NEAREST AMERICAN EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.