Two Romanian Phishers Imprisoned by US Federal Courts

Bogdan Boceanu, 30 and Andrei Bolovan 29 are two Romanians who have been imprisoned for 80, and 27 months respectively, for their involvement in a huge phishing scam that hit users of eBay and many financial companies, reported softpedia.com on June 12, 2013.

With 17 Romanian citizens the two fraudsters were charged by US federal authorities of launching phishing schemes that hit the users of eBay, Wells Fargo, PayPal, US Bank, People's Bank, LaSalle Bank Regions Bank, Bank of America Citibank and others.

The fraudsters sent out spam emails in an attempt to con the consumers of these organizations to visit phony websites, where they were guided to submit personal and financial details like credit card numbers, PINs, expiration dates, CVV codes and social security numbers (SSNs).

US authorities started their inquiry in 2005 summer after a local of Madison, Connecticut, called the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) in New Haven after receiving a suspicious email pretending to be from People's Bank.

The email said that the users' online banking access profile had been locked and advised the user to click on a link to a webpage where the user could submit details to "unlock" his or her profile. The webpage seems to begin from People's Bank, but, as the investigation disclosed, was actually hosted on an infected computer in Minnesota. Any personal recognizing and financial details given by the individual would be sent by email to people in Romania, or to a "collector" account, which was an email account used to receive and gather the details receiver via phishing.

The federal investigation initiated by FBI about seven years ago found that Boceanu had in excess of 12,000 credit and debit card numbers stored in the accounts from 2004-2007. Bolovan participated in the scandal from 2004 to 2007. The two criminals were extradited to the US in 2010.

On December 5, 2012, Bolovan plead guilty to one count of conspiracy in association with access device. A jury, on December 11, 2012, recognized Boceanu guilty of the same charge, together with one more count of conspiring to carry out bank fraud.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/18/2013