A 16 year old male has been arrested in the UK on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990, as the FBI confirmed arrests as part of investigations into attacks on PayPal.
It is believed the teenager was apprehended in suspicion of being part of Anonymous. He remains in custody, the Metropolitan Police confirmed.
The FBI said 16 people had been detained for alleged hacking offences, 14 suspected of involvement in attacks on PayPal.
Anonymous claimed responsibility for a distributed denial of service (DDoS) hit on PayPal last year, saying it attacked the payments firm due to its withdrawal of support for WikiLeaks. Anonymous said the attack was part of "Operation Avenge Assange."
A total of 21 arrests across the UK, US and the Netherlands were confirmed yesterday as part of a coordinated operation with the FBI. Investigations into Anonymous and loosely related splinter group LulzSec are thought to be ongoing.
The teenager in the UK was arrested at a south London address yesterday.
The 14 individuals arrested in the US were found across the country in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio.
Anonymous hit a number of organisations for dropping WikiLeaks support in 2011, including MasterCard and Visa, as well as PayPal.
The eBay subsidiary had its Twitter account hijacked earlier this month, as the perpetrators sent out messages criticising PayPal. Attackers put out tweets promoting paypalsucks.com.
Earlier this year, UK police arrested five males, all under the age of 30, in relation to pro-WikiLeaks Anonymous attacks.
