A Scottish man will appear in court today for his alleged involvement in an international computer crime racket.

The 27-year-old was detained under Computer Misuse Act 1990 last week for his suspected involvement in an internet extortion racket.

Officers from Scotland's High Tech Crime Unit (SHTCU) raided an address in Elgin in North-East Scotland following a long running investigation involving the US Secret Service.

The transatlantic operation is investigating a series of distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS) used to bring down web sites for blackmail purposes.

Last year criminal launched DDOS attacks on a number of high-profile web sites, crippling computer networks by flooding them with a high levels of traffic using thousands of infected zombie computers.

Firms not responding to extortion emails faced further income damaging attacks.

'Business groups, organisations and individuals can all be the subject of internet criminality and I would like to reiterate this agency's commitment to police this criminal behaviour in all its guises,' said Detective Chief Superintendent Stephen Ward, spokesman for the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency, which the (SHTCU) is part of.

The SHTCU raided two addresses in the North East of Scotland on Thursday, seizing computer equipment.

The suspect, who will appear at Elgin Sheriff Court today, is also likely to be questioned by US Secret Service agents as part of the investigation, code-named Operation Caspar.

'If someone is talented enough they can - from a remote location like Elgin - do damage that impacts on computers around the world,' said Ward.