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Quebec provincial police said Wednesday they have dismantled what they called the largest and most damaging computer-hacking network ever uncovered in Canada.

During several action-packed early-morning hours Wednesday, provincial police and RCMP officers dismantled the latest hacking ring by successfully carrying out 17 lightning-fast raids in 12 towns small and large across Quebec, including Montreal.

They collared 17 hacking suspects aged 17 to 26. All are male except for one, a 19-year-old woman.

Some of the suspects were to appear in court Wednesday while others were released with the promise to appear.

Police raiding parties also sealed and carted away dozens of hard drives and other computer components from the homes of each of the suspects.

This hardware is believed to contain the smoking guns -- a bonanza of incriminating data to document the alleged ring, said SQ Capt. Frederick Gaudreau, lead investigator.

"This is a new form of organized crime," he proclaimed to reporters summoned to SQ headquarters in Montreal.

Savvy youngsters who've grown up with computers can take advantage of lax or inattentive users connected via broadband to the Internet.

That's what this ring did, Capt. Gaudreau alleged, adding that its operators extended their electronic tentacles from some of Quebec's smaller towns to seize control, via sophisticated remote-access software, of almost a million computers in more than 100 countries.

With so-called Trojan-horse and worm software, poorly protected computers can be hijacked and turned into so-called zombies, even while their users wonder why their Internet connection has slowed so dramatically.

The hackers, Capt. Gaudreau alleged, used these hijacking techniques to carry out identity theft, data theft of other kinds, spamming and denial-of-service attacks.

These acts caused an estimated $45-million in damages, Capt. Gaudreau added, to governments, businesses and individuals.

He refused to provide any further breakdown, such as an estimate of the volume of financial fraud committed.

The country's most notorious hacker to date was a 15-year-old Montrealer with the handle Mafiaboy.

The law provides a maximum of 10 years behind bars for illegal use of computer services -- but after crippling some of the world's most heavily trafficked Web sites eight years ago, Mafiaboy ended up with just eight months in youth detention.

Capt. Gaudreau issued repeated pleas for computer users to keep their anti-virus software up-to-date and to properly configure network firewalls.

Victims of the ring had neglected to do one or both -- opening the door for the ring's kingpins to plant malicious software programs with impunity, he alleged.

Each of the hackers detained Wednesday surreptitiously controlled an average of about 5,000 computers, Capt. Gaudreau alleged.

The victims were largely -- but not exclusively -- located outside Canada, he said.

The ring required "hundreds" of officers from the SQ and the RCMP to take down, he added.

The probe began in 2006, he said, following complaints from government agencies, businesses and individuals.

Painstaking forensic audits of thousands of gigabytes of computer data seized will now be required before provincial police can write the final chapter of this Internet saga.

Police expect the necessary evidence is likely to be served up on the dozens of computer hard drives confiscated Wednesday, Capt. Gaudreau said.

Many of the victims documented by investigators were located in Poland, Brazil and Mexico, he added.

Seven of those arrested Wednesday have been charged with illegally obtaining computer services, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Further charges against these seven could follow, Gaudreau said, depending on the data found on their computers.

Others were released after questioning, Gaudreau said, and haven't been charged but may face charges later.

The 17, communicating with each other largely via Internet, each operated with multiple computers, Capt. Gaudreau alleged, from 17 locations in 12 cities, towns and hamlets across the province.