TWO hackers from the North-East who helped launch a virus that caused computer chaos across the globe will be sentenced next week.

Andrew Harvey, 22, and Jordan Bradley, 20, were arrested following a joint swoop by Durham Police and US secret service and FBI agents investigating a hacking group.

The group, known as the THr34t-Krew, created an Internet worm that infected 18,000 computers around the world and caused disruption costing an estimated £5.5m.

The group is believed to have members around the world, mostly in their teens and early 20s.

The North-East pair were arrested in a series of co-ordinated raids in the UK and US.

Bradley and Harvey, who appeared at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday, admitted at a previous hearing to conspiracy to cause unauthorised modifications of computers with intent between December 2001 and February 2003.

Harvey, of Scardale Way, Belmont, Durham City, and Bradley, of Bates Avenue, Darlington, were to have been sentenced yesterday. But the case was adjourned to Friday, October 7.