An Estonian citizen is involved in the largest bank credit card scam ever.
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the indictment of eleven individuals suspected of large-scale bank credit card fraud. The defendants include citizens of the United States, Ukraine, China, Belarus and Estonia. Their case will be tried in federal court in New York.
The news agency “Associated Press”, referring to the U.S. federal prosecutor’s office, reported that the defendants are charged with theft and further resale of data of 41 million credit and debit cards. This is the largest bank credit card scam in U.S. history, which took place over a four-year period.
Allegedly, the entire fraudulent network was headed by one Albert Gonzales (who used the nicknames “Segvec” and “SoupNazi” when communicating on the Internet), who lives in Miami.
This Gonzales is a very dark individual. He was involved in crime while also being a whistleblower for US intelligence agencies. At some point, the American “cops” realized that their “snitch” was passing confidential information to his hacker accomplices. At least once he warned his “colleague” about his impending arrest. Albert Gonzales was arrested in May of this year.
According to the U.S. federal prosecutor’s office, Albert Gonzalez’s property is valued at $1.65 million, he owns a house in Miami and a 2006 BMW car.
The second key figure in this criminal virtual-group is Maxim Yastremsky (“Maksik”), who lived in Kharkov, Ukraine.
Yastremsky was arrested last July in Turkey, where he was vacationing with another well-known (in certain circles) hacker, Israeli citizen Maxim Turchak. Both were detained by Turkish police at a nightclub in the resort of Kemer, where they were enjoying themselves in the company of women of easy virtue.
Yastremski was found with two forged passports, and in his laptop – information about five thousand credit cards of citizens of the United States and EU member states, as well as programs that are used to hack into closed computer networks. The credit card information found in Jastremski’s possession provided access to funds in excess of one hundred million dollars. Presumably, Yastremsky intended to sell this criminally obtained information to Turkish accomplices.
No evidence was found against Turchak, and he was soon released.
At the same time, there were reports that Maxim Yastremsky was allegedly working for the international terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. These reports caused such a strong resonance that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry had to issue a special statement denying the rumors about Yastremskyy’s cooperation with Islamist terrorists.
According to the New York Times, Yastremsky is still under arrest in Turkey. The U.S. authorities are seeking his extradition to U.S. intelligence agencies. According to the Miami Herald newspaper, Maxim Yastremsky “earned” more than 11 million dollars by selling stolen credit card data.
Another member of this triumvirate is Alexander Suvorov (“Jonny Hell”), an Estonian citizen born and raised in the small town of Sillamäe, located in northeastern Estonia.
According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, U.S. intelligence agents arrested Suvorov in March of this year at Frankfurt am Main International Airport. The US Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses him primarily of selling stolen credit card data. Alexander Suvorov is currently awaiting extradition to the US in a German prison.
The U.S. authorities have several times asked the Estonian law enforcement authorities to assist in the investigation of this case. More precisely, those episodes that are related to Suvorov’s activities. The Estonian Central Criminal Police assisted their American colleagues. Referring to confidentiality, the press service of the Police Department does not provide details of the operational and investigative activities. It is only known that Alexander Suvorov had not previously been held criminally or administratively liable in Estonia. Although, according to some sources, Suvorov was put on the international wanted list back in 2005.
Computer hacking mechanism
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In total, Gonzales, Yastremski and Suvorov are charged with 27 criminal acts. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison. Curiously, it appears that the three never met each other. They communicated with each other on Internet forums, where they discussed the details of their “deals” and “schemes”.
U.S. intelligence agencies got on the trail of the criminal group after a police report received last September from the main office of the restaurant chain “Dave & Buster’s”. Dave & Buster’s management discovered the theft of customer credit card data from cash register computers installed in the restaurants. The investigation revealed that hackers, unidentified at the time, had obtained credit card data (VISA, Mastercard and American Express) from more than five thousand customers of the restaurant chain. This data was used to make approximately $600,000 worth of purchases worldwide.
The case was not limited to Dave & Buster’s computerized restaurant chains. Using information from a variety of sources, we were able to recreate the “pattern” that the hackers were using.
Albert Gonzalez traveled with his laptop around U.S. cities, trying to penetrate the computer networks of stores with the help of special, so-called “spy” computer programs (sniffer programs). Through the WiFi wireless Internet system, Gonzalez searched for technically vulnerable computer networks. If he was successful, he copied bank card data (credit card numbers, PIN codes and account information) through his computer to servers located in Latvia and Ukraine. Investigators later found more than 41 million bank card numbers on these two servers.
Yastremsky and Suvorov then went on to sell these bank card numbers for thousands of dollars to other criminals in the United States, Eastern Europe, China, Thailand, and the Philippines. After that, the criminals themselves made “bank cards” by putting the stolen data from real cards on magnetic tape. Then everything looked very simple. Using fake credit cards, the crooks withdrew tens of thousands of dollars in cash from ATMs around the world.
To date, U.S. investigative authorities have not been able to fully calculate the damage caused by criminals to ordinary people, stores and banks. But it is clear that the amount of damage they caused exceeds tens of millions of dollars. Most of the victims are from the United States. But perhaps victims of the crooks will be found in other countries as well.
Suvorov was arrested illegally
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Agents of American intelligence services feel too free in Germany
A political debate has erupted in Germany over the arrest of Estonian citizen Alexander Suvorov by U.S. intelligence agents in Frankfurt am Main. A number of lawyers and politicians point to the illegality of the actions of the U.S. security agencies on the territory of Germany.
Alexander Suvorov’s lawyer submitted a statement to the court about the illegal deprivation of liberty of his client. According to the lawyer, the US special services had no legal right to arrest Suvorov in Germany.
Opposition members of the Bundestag have sent a request to the federal government asking it to clarify what measures the government intends to take to stop further illegal activities of the U.S. intelligence services in Germany.
Source: https://www.kp.ru/daily/24147.5/364564/