A 25-year-old man from Den Bosch has been arrested for over 1,000 counts of hacking, phishing and identity fraud, police confirmed on Tuesday.

The man was arrested on July 3 and has since confessed, police said. He was first arrested for hacking webshops but the charges were later expanded.

The man set up a fully automated fake version of a banking website which was sent to companies involved in automated selling via online auction site Marktplaats.nl. This allowed him to steal their bank details and either plunder their accounts or use their accounts to make sales and then take the money, according to website Nu.nl.

He is thought to have approached between 15,000 and 20,000 advertisers in this way and has been active for some time, according to a police statement.

In addition to hacking, the man has also blackmailed at least one woman by hacking into her dropbox account and placing private photos online. He may have hacked more dropbox accounts, police said.

The man is being held in custody and will appear in court on October 16.