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Crime is now organized on the Internet. Operating in the anonymity of cyberspace, Web mobs with names like Shadowcrew and stealthdivision are building networks that help crackers and phishers, money launderers and fences skim off some of the billions that travel through the Web every day.

The players and their games change so quickly it’s hard to piece together who they are and how they work together. But that picture’s becoming more clear, as the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies crack open the networks and prosecute those that run them.

In this special report, writers Deborah Gage and John McCormick map out how the networks get started, how they work, what they steal, and how the feds stay on their tails.