CYBERSPACE blackmailers have sabotaged the website that earned a British student entrepreneur more than $1 million in advertising sales.

A criminal gang, suspected to have links with the Russian mafia, is demanding $50,000 (£28,200) to call off an attack that yesterday caused the site to crash.

The FBI is investigating the sabotage and attempted extortion because the servers hosting the site are based in the US.

Alex Tew, 21, the founder of milliondollarhomepage.com, started the project in August to to pay his way through university. The site, which was divided into 10,000 tiny squares sold to advertisers for $100 each, made headlines around the world when it hit its target this month. But the publicity also attracted the attentions of a gang calling itself the “The Dark Group”, which sent Mr Tew a ransom note via e-mail on January 7 demanding $5,000. The group said: “We’re capable to take your site down.”

When Mr Tew refused to pay, the gang caused the site to crash on Thursday. On Friday they sent a second e-mail, this time demanding $50,000.

The e-mail, which has been resent every day, says: “hello u website is under us atack to stop the ddos send us 50000$ . . . if u do not pay -u site NEVER came online . . . -u have BIG problem with u sponsors . . . u must answer TODAY.”

Mr Tew, of Cricklade, Wiltshire, said that despite efforts to improve security the hackers had stepped up the attack.

Mr Tew said: “There are some ruthless people out there, but to be honest I expected something like this to happen as the profile of the site increased.

“At the moment I’m too busy to ponder the moral implications of it. Two thousand people have paid me $1 million between them to advertise on the site and I am focusing on getting the site up and running again.”

Click here for technology news

Times recommends

• Students face big rise in university fees
• Students to rate lecturers online
• Lord heads team to look at raising tuition fees