A 21-count indictment was unsealed today charging three
Romanian nationals for operating a cyber fraud conspiracy in which they
infected between 60,000 and 160,000 computers, sent out 11 million malicious
emails and stole at least $4 million.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice
Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Carole S. Rendon of the Northern
District of Ohio and Special Agent in Charge Stephen D. Anthony of the FBI’s
Cleveland Division made the announcement.
Bogdan Nicolescu, 34, Tiberiu Danet, 31, and Radu Miclaus,
34, were extradited to the United States this week after being taken into
custody in their native Romania earlier this year. They were each charged with 12 counts of wire
fraud, as well as one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy
to traffic in counterfeit service marks, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy
to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act.
“This case illustrates the sophistication and determination
with which cyber criminals seek to harm Americans and American businesses from
abroad,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “But our response demonstrates that, with
effective international cooperation, we can track these criminals down and make
sure they face justice, no matter where or how they try to hide.”
“These defendants stole millions of dollars from people in
the United States through a sophisticated fraud conspiracy they operated in
Eastern Europe,” said U.S. Attorney Rendon.
“Cybercrime is an ever-growing threat.
We will continue to work with both our partners in law enforcement and
in the private sector to evolve with the threat and protect our networks and
national security.”
“This indictment and subsequent arrests reveal the dynamic
landscape in which international criminals utilize sophisticated cyber methods
to take advantage of and defraud unsuspecting victims,” said Special Agent in
Charge Anthony. “Despite the complexity
and global character of these investigations, these arrests demonstrate the
commitment by the FBI and our partners to aggressively pursue these individuals
and bring justice to the victims.”
According to the indictment, Nicolescu, Danet and Miclaus
collectively operated a criminal conspiracy from Bucharest, Romania, which
began at least as early 2007 with the development of proprietary malware used
to infect and control more than 60,000 computers, primarily in the United
States. The co-conspirators allegedly
used the computers to harvest personally identifiable information, such as
credit card information, user names and passwords; disable malware protection;
and solve complex algorithms to accrue valuable cryptocurrency for the
financial benefit of the group, a process known as cryptocurrency mining.
To spread their malware, the defendants allegedly activated
files that forced infected computers to register a total of over 100,000 email
accounts with public email providers, according to the indictment. The co-conspirators sent a total of more than
11 million emails containing the malware from these accounts to email contacts
copied from victim computers. When
victims with infected computers visited websites such as Facebook, PayPal or
eBay, the co-conspirators would redirect the computers to a nearly identical
website they had created to steal account credentials. The defendants then used stolen credit card
information to fund their criminal infrastructure while concealing their
identities.
In addition, the indictment alleges that the defendants
placed more than 1,000 fraudulent listings for automobiles, motorcycles and
other high-priced goods on eBay and similar auction websites. Photos of the items were allegedly infected
with malware, which, when clicked, redirected victims to fictitious webpages
designed by the co-conspirators to resemble legitimate eBay pages. The fictitious webpages prompted users to pay
for their goods through a nonexistent “eBay Escrow Agent,” and payments would
then be funneled back to the co-conspirators.
This scheme allegedly resulted in at least $4 million – though the
actual total may be tens of millions more – in losses to victims, which the
defendants laundered through wire transfers under the names of fictitious
companies and then collected and delivered to the co-conspirators by “money
mules.”
An indictment is merely an allegation and the defendants are
presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a
court of law.
The FBI investigated the case with assistance from the
Romanian National Police. Senior Counsel
Brian Levine of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual
Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Duncan T. Brown and Om Kakani of
the Northern District of Ohio are prosecuting the case. The Criminal Division’s Office of
International Affairs provided substantial assistance in this matter.
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