A woman in the Netherlands recently revealed that her 8-year-old son once managed to purchase an AK-47 off the dark web without her knowledge and then even got it delivered to their home.
In an interview with Euronews, Barbara Gemen, a human resources expert in the Netherlands, discussed her son's involvement in cybercrime at a very young age. She revealed that her son used to spend a lot of time behind the computer and even started hacking at the age of eight.
"He started ordering things on the Internet without paying," Ms Gemen said. She stated while her son's dark web purchases started off with small things such as "free" pizza, they progressively became more horrifying.
According to the outlet, the parent claimed that her son used incomprehensible code phrases such as "Pitt is coming to our place" whenever she would enter a room, masking his dealings by communing with illicit actors via online games. She even said that the hackers used her son to launder money for others as well.
However, it wasn't until the AK-47 showed up at her doorstep that she realised what was happening was much bigger than she and her son. "I think he spent a month figuring out how to order the gun and have it shipped to our home," Ms Gemen recalled, stating that her son had the gun routed from Poland to Bulgaria in an effort to avoid customs.
"He opened it and he was really, really excited that he managed to get a gun delivered to our home," she said. "I was completely shocked. I immediately decided to do things differently at home," she added.
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Speaking to the outlet, Ms Gemen said that she turned the gun over to her local police department and no legal action was taken against her child. She also began noticing a change in her son's personality. "He started to wake up at night to sit behind a computer and he was really stressed. And that's when we find out he was working with a group of international hackers." she said.
Ms Gemen contacted the law enforcement for advice, but alleged that her concern was dismissed as "exaggeration". This is when she decided to train herself in cybersecurity and is now a Cyber Special Volunteer with the Dutch Police.
"It's so easy these days because a lot of kids have laptops and cell phones and you can basically do a hack with a few clicks," said Ms Gemen. "It's a quite big issue to prevent young people from hacking. They often don't know what's legal or what's illegal," she added.
