Son of a Russian Lawmaker Found to be Hacker Stealing 2.9 Million Credit Card Numbers
On Thursday, Roman Seleznev was founded guilty by Seattle's federal jury for stealing many credit card information, and then selling those information online to various other fraudsters. 32 years old Seleznev is son of Valery Seleznev, a Parliament member of Russia.
Seleznev, who rarely went by moniker "Track2" online, was hacking into the restaurant as well as retail PoS (Point of Sale) systems from at least Oct. 2009, and continued that till Oct. 2013.
Many of these businesses are in the Western Washington, and Broadway Grill in Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle was made bankrupt following cyber attacks. The hacks caused losses in excess of $169 million for the 3,700 financial institutions.
As per DOJ, once the details about credit card was acquired, it went to other servers controlled by Seleznev in Ukraine, Russia, or McLean, Va. Geekwire.com posted on August 25th, 2016, stating that he bundle the information of credit cards into groups known as "bases", and then sell those details on the "carding" websites to various people who use those details to do fraudulent purchases.
Seleznev sold around 140,000 credit card data via his preferred carding websites and forums, and collected $2 million. However, the scheme seems to be far massive than that. He got arrested along with his girlfriend in the year 2014, in Maldives. As per DOJ: "[Seleznev's] laptop contained more than 1.7 million stolen credit card numbers, some of which were stolen from businesses in Western Washington. The laptop also contained additional evidence linking Seleznev to the servers, e-mail accounts and financial transactions involved in the scheme". US prosecutors assess that Seleznev has stolen 2.9 million credit card data during the past few years.
This case was the source for international tension. Father of Seleznev is member of Federal Assembly of Russia, which is parliament of the nation, and is close to Vladimir Putin, Russian President. When his son was arrested, his father suggested that Seleznev was arrested partially in retaliation for Russia's harboring of former government contractor of US, Edward Snowden.
The Seattle Times has been told by Seleznev's attorneys that they will appeal against the verdict. As per the argument of defense team, the computer belonging to Seleznev was tampered, when it was kept in the office of U.S. Secret Service.
ยป SPAMfighter News - 9/1/2016
