Police Central e-crime Unit ransomware - How to remove

June 3, 2013 By Giedrius Majauskas

Be aware of the Police Central e-crime Unit ransomware that has been spreading around these days. This ransomware, just like Metropolitan Police scam, or PCEU virus tends to lock entire computer in order to scare its victims and get some money from them. To trick computer users, this program also displays an alert claiming that his IP is found to have visited websites containing pornography, child pornography and other websites having illegal content and now he must pay a fine of 100 pounds. In addition, users are asked to pay only through the Ukash or Paysafecard prepaid payment systems. Don’t fall for this dangerous application! This ransomware has nothing to do with Specialist Crime Directorate of Police Central e-crime Unit (UK’s Metropolitan Police) which is mentioned on the title of this fake alert.

As soon as you get this malware, you will find your computer completely locked and you can’t do anything on it. Anything! You will see only this tricky alert supposedly sent by the Police Central e-crime Unit saying that you have violated the law by visiting websites containing pornography and that your computer also contains video files with Pornographic content, elements of violence and other illegal content. Firstly, keep in mind that this is done for the only reason – to scare PC users and get their money. Secondly – remember that this notification is deceitful, misleading and can be removed from your desktop only by removing the Trojan It’s highly recommended to ignore Metropolitan Police fake alerts and remove this ransomware without any delay. Note that there have been noticed the same-looking ransomwares displaying similar alerts in French, English, German, Portuguese and other languages.

There are several ways how to remove Police Central e-crime Unit virus depending on its versions.

a) If you can boot in safe mode, you can try running msconfig and disabling all startup entries. Then scan with anti-malware programs in normal mode.
b) If you can use safe mode with networking, scan with Spyhunter or other anti-malware programs directly – they are likely to detect and remove this ransomware.
c) If you can access safe mode with command prompt only, run regedit. Search for infected Shell keys under Winlogon. The malicious keys will reference files from %TEMP% or %appData%. Change them to explorer.exe instead.

We recommend following these steps to eliminate the blocking:

1. Restart your computer, press F8 while it is restarting;
2. Choose safe mode with networking;
3. Launch MSConfig;
4. Disable startup items rundll32 turning on any application from Application Data;
5. Restart your computer again;
7. Scan with https://www.2-viruses.com/downloads/spyhunter-i.exe to find the file and remove it. Here is a video guide, showing how to do all the steps:

If you cannot use Safe Mode, try rebooting into safe mode with command prompt. Here’s how to delete Police Central e-crime Unit ransomware using this approach:

Reboot into safe mode with command prompt. Police Central e-crime Unit ransomware should not be launched this time.
Run regedit. Search for Winlogon.
There will be a key labeled Shell under Winlogon. It should refer to Explorer.exe or be blank. If there is something else referring an executable in one of users folders, replace it with explorer.exe.
Save changes, reboot to safe mode with networking.
Run msconfig and disable all unnecessary startup entries. You should be able to reboot normally.
Install and run https://www.2-viruses.com/downloads/spyhunter-i.exe. Scan with it the PC and delete Police Central e-crime Unit virus executables it finds.

Here is a video guide illustrating this virus removal method:

Automatic Malware removal tools

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Manual removal

Processes:

Registers:

Removal guides in other languages

Police Central e-crime Unit ransomware facts

Type: Ransomware