Hackers attack Czech Minister’s businesses over online gambling bans

The private businesses of the Czech Republic’s minister of finance, Andrej Babis were briefly taken down by anonymous hackers protesting at new laws giving the government power to shutter illegal online gambling sites, according to Reuters news service reports Tuesday.

Babis is reportedly the country’s second wealthiest man, owning major companies involved in the food and agricultural sector.

Reuters quotes the private news agency Lupa.cz which broke the story, reporting that the hackers managed to shut down the websites of Babis’s holding company Agrofert and bakery group Penam for a short period on Monday evening.

The hackers have threatened more website attacks against Agrofert and lawmakers, and have called for the cancellation of the new law that places greater restrictions on gambling.

“The Finance Ministry led by Andrej Babis gets almost limitless power to censor the internet. It is time to move against it,” the hackers claimed in a video posted on Youtube describing what it called Operation Blockade.

The hackers have also demanded the end of a planned online system for monitoring retail sales that the finance ministry is launching at the end of the year.

Babis told Reuters that he would file a criminal complaint over the attacks.

“We only want to apply rules used by 18 (European Union) countries already, nobody wants to censor the internet. It is aimed against gambling companies that do not pay taxes,” Babis said.

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