Autistic computer whizz Diogo Santos Coelho, 24, accused of masterminding an international cybercrime racket begs authorities to stop his extradition to the US

An autistic computer whizz from London accused of masterminding an international cybercrime racket has urged authorities to stop his extradition to the US.

Diogo Santos Coelho, 24, is at the centre of a tug-of-war between his native Portugal and the US on suspicion he was a key player in a scam which sold the illegally obtained personal details of millions of victims, making shadowy criminals rich in the process.

Santos Coelho, who was raised in Croydon, south London, said he was effectively groomed as a friendless teenager, and had no idea he was doing anything wrong.

He has cooperated fully with authorities since being arrested as he got off a flight into Gatwick in January 2022, and is determined to 'face justice' - but not in the US.

Last night, Santos Coelho told the Mail on Sunday: 'I am simply trying to go back to my home country, to my family, and face whatever consequences come at me.

Diogo Santos Coelho, 24, is at the centre of a tug-of-war between his native Portugal and the US on suspicion he was a key player in a cybercrime racket 

The autistic computer whizz from London (pictured with his sister sister Ana) has urged authorities to stop his extradition to the US.

'I believe Portugal, the country of my birth, and in Europe, I think they focus on rehabilitation. But in the US, they are focussed only on retribution.

'In America, I feel there is no hope.

'Logically, because of my autism, I can't see a life beyond being sent to America. When I think of that, I just think: Why live at all?

'So I hope the authorities understand there is a human aspect to this, and let me face justice in Portugal.'

Santos Coelho appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court this month where he consented to being extradited to Portugal where he is wanted for money laundering, tax fraud, and cyber criminality over his alleged role as the 'chief administrator' of the RaidForums website.

But he is also fighting being sent to the US amid fears for his human rights, with particular concern prison conditions will not take his recently diagnosed autism into consideration.

Santos Coelho is unable to comment on the specifics of the case for legal reasons - including, his defence team say, because they are yet to be provided with  evidence. There is no requirement for the US to serve prima facie evidence when seeking extradition from the UK.

But Santos Coelho is alleged to have pocketed more than half a million euro out of a scam in which victims across the planet are believed to have lost around £400 million.

RaidForums was a 'black hat' site that enabled the selling of people's personal information

Santos Coelho, who was raised in Croydon, south London, said he was effectively groomed as a friendless teenager, and had no idea he was doing anything wrong.

Medical experts fear the prospect of a 52-year jail term and isolation from friends and family in the States, rather than a 12-year sentence in Portugal where he has a support network, make Santos Coelho at 'high risk' of suicide.

His appeal against extradition to the US is currently going through the High Court, so the decision of where Santos Coelho should eventually be sent falls to the Home Office.

So how did a shy, ostracised and severely bullied teenager living in Croydon become what the US authorities believe to be a major player in an international cybercrime scheme?

Santos Coelho said he was a 'friendless' 11-year-old who sought solace in computer game chat rooms when he was befriended by a group of older contributors.

'I was always very fascinated by computers and how things worked,' he said.

'Then when I was around 13 or 14, these people who were in my group online asked me if I could help them build a website.

'I had no issue with that, I was always very keen on learning how to do new things.

'So I just said yes. And I suppose that's how that all started.'

Santos Coelho said he was a 'friendless' 11-year-old who sought solace in computer game chat rooms when he was befriended by a group of older contributors.

He said these 'friends', who he has never met in person, told him the website would direct new followers to livestreamers, and would occasionally involve pranks - nothing 'mischievous or illegal', he said.

'I was a child, I essentially did what they asked,' he said.

'Over time I always tried to reassure myself I wasn't doing anything illegal.

'I would always ask them: Is this wrong? Is this gonna get you or me in trouble?

'And they would always assure me: No, you're just a developer of the website.'

He said these 'friends' turned nasty and threatened him when, aged 16, he said he wanted to spend less time on the website and more time on his engineering apprenticeship.

Santos Coelho and his family originally moved to England when he was nine because of his father's work.

But by the time he was 14, his mother was gravely ill with the degenerative condition Huntington's Disease and Santos Coelho was apparently being mercilessly picked-on at school.

He is said to have spent much of his time in his room on the computer, free from any meaningful parental supervision.

Santos Coelho and his family originally moved to England when he was nine because of his father's work. He is pictured with his sister Ana 

It was at this stage, his lawyers argue, that the impressionable and naive Santos Coelho was 'groomed and exploited' by much older criminal gangs online.

Santos Coelho said: 'Now, looking back as an adult, I think the signs are quite obvious.

'But when I was growing up, it never occurred to me, it was never in my mind that was being groomed or exploited.'

By the age of 16,  Santos Coelho had moved back to Portugal with his father. 

And for the next six years, prosecutors say, he was the chief administrator for RaidForums, an English-language website which allowed criminals to buy and sell stolen personal and financial information, amounting to around 10 billion individual records, such as bank accounts and payment details.

The website was seized by the FBI in 2022, and Santos Coelho arrested. He was charged with six criminal counts, including conspiracy, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.

District Judge Michael Snow this month described both Santos Coelho and the system for which he was allegedly chief administrator as 'very sophisticated', and warned the suspect he faced 'a very substantial prison term if convicted'.

But Ben Cooper KC, the suspect's lawyer, informed the extradition court that the Home Office has already recognised that there are reasonable grounds to believe Santos Coelho was a victim of modern slavery, acting on behalf of those with nefarious plans for him.

His autism was undiagnosed at the time, and so he was not receiving any support for his disability.

The case echoes that of Gary McKinnon, a British self-confessed 'bumbling computer nerd' who was wanted in the US for hacking into Pentagon and Nasa computers in a naive attempt to unearth information about UFOs more than two decades ago.

Mr McKinnon has Asperger's, a form of autism, though, like Santos Coelho, his condition was undiagnosed at the time of the alleged offending.

He faced up to 60 years behind bars if convicted, but was blocked from being extradited to the US by then-Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012 following a relentless Daily Mail campaign to allow him to go on trial in England. The Crown Prosecution Service later confirmed no charges would be brought against Mr McKinnon.

Mr Cooper KC said: 'Bearing in mind that Diogo is a victim of grooming and suffers from autism, a disability that was exploited by online adults when he was still a child and the impact an extradition to the US would have (length of sentence, prison conditions, away from family, risk of suicide), it is unnecessary and clearly disproportionate for extradition to America to take priority / to proceed given his consent to extradition to Portugal and his full cooperation with the Portuguese authorities.'

A Home Office spokesman said: 'It is longstanding government policy that we do not routinely comment on individual cases.'