Kommersant
Bank fraud scheme: Hackers get off easy
In Manhattan, New York’s Southern District Attorney has issued the verdict on a group of defendants involved in global bank fraud schemes that used malware to steal over $3 million from U.S. bank accounts.
Of the 37-member group arrested last fall, 25 are Russians who entered the United States on student visas. Although they face sentences of up to 30 years behind bars, these first verdicts indicate that they may get off easy.
After their arrest on September 30, NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said: “After NYPD detectives entered a Bronx bank in February to investigate a suspicious $44,000 withdrawal, it soon became evident that it was just the tip of an international iceberg.”
A year-long investigation conducted by police forces from several states, FBI agents, the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, secret agents and the Department of Homeland Security led to the arrests.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at least 25 of the 37 people charged are Russian nationals. The oldest among them is 26, and the others are aged between 20 and 23. They entered the United States on student visas.
The criminal group used a malware known as the Zeus Trojan, which was sent as an apparently-benign email to computers at small businesses and municipalities in the United States. Once the email was opened, the malware embedded itself in the victims’ computers, and recorded their keystrokes – including their account numbers, passwords, and other vital security codes – as they logged into their bank accounts online.
The hackers responsible for the malware then used the stolen account information to take over the victims’ bank accounts, and made unauthorized transfers of thousands of dollars at a time to receiving accounts controlled by the co-conspirators.
Nearly all of those charged are intermediaries who pocketed only 8 – 10 percent of the sum from the above bank accounts. They forwarded the rest to their co-conspirators in Eastern Europe as cash or money transfers.
The FBI thinks the group stole over $70 million during its three-year bank fraud operation, but the investigators so far only have hard evidence for the much more modest sum of $3 million.
FBI agent Jim Margolin said the case is not yet closed; they think more evidence remains to be uncovered.On January 6, Alexander Fedorov, a Russian national charged in a one-count information with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, was given 10 months in prison and fined $100.
Earlier, Anton Yuferitsyn received a similarly soft sentence, while Alexander Sorokin, who faced 20 years locked up and a fine of $500,000 or twice the amount laundered, was sentenced to a mere six months. Yuferitsyn and Sorokin have each been fined $38,000.
Their co-conspirators who transferred the money from the bank accounts will get even softer sentences. First, many turned themselves in, and second, their cases will be heard in municipal courts, which usually pass softer sentences.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Shovels more use than GLONASS
Kaliningrad Mayor sends 600 bureaucrats out to de-ice the city’s streets.
City-hall officials in Kaliningrad have been given shovels and sent to spend the afternoons outside clearing snow. This was city Mayor Alexander Yaroshuk’s unorthodox approach to tackling the heavy snowfalls that have engulfed the city.
In the first few days of January, however, the mainly female workforce did not make much of an impact. Local journalists did get a stunning photo opportunity, as women wearing trendy fur coats and high-heeled boots roamed the streets brandishing their shovels (they had only been told about their new duties at lunchtime.)
A combination of factors resulted in snowfalls paralyzing the city. First – the city saw two-month’s worth of snow in just a few days.
Second, only on-call emergency units were available during the holiday season, and the 400 street-cleaners could not compensate for inadequacies in the city’s snow-clearing equipment.
On January 9, indignant Kaliningrad Region Governor Nikolai Tsukanov demanded that the roads be cleared of snow within four days. In response, Mayor Yaroshuk ordered 600 city hall pen-pushers to de-ice the pavements, after a recent thaw gave way to subzero temperatures.
Nadir Agayev, former head of the city’s Leningrad District, was dismissed after Yaroshuk criticized his absence during the bad weather. Yaroshuk proposed dismissing all the city’s district chiefs responsible for the housing and utilities sector, and even published his cell-phone number, so that ordinary residents could tell him which streets needed to be cleared.
While city-hall officials were out fighting this war on ice, Regional Infrastructure Development Minister Alexander Rolbinov explained how the very latest technology was being introduced in this snow-clearing effort. Equipment across the region was fitted with Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) transceivers to monitor the drivers’ progress. This paper understands that the equipment is still being tested. Gennady Leibovich, head of the road-infrastructure department, said 100 pieces of equipment had been fitted with these devices, at a cost of 1.5 million rubles ($50,000). The system is expected to recoup that outlay within three months.
Although GLONASS can pinpoint snow-removal equipment, it is unable to say whether or not the snowdrifts have been removed, that will still have to be done by inspectors on foot. That said, local authorities will still be able to report back to Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who has long lobbied for a nationwide rollout of GLONASS technology (whether or not it’s needed), that they are ahead of the curve.
Utilities services have been lulled into a false sense of security during the markedly mild winters of the past 10 years. The past two years have proved exceptional, with extremely cold weather plaguing Kaliningrad residents, and the city was recently hit by its heaviest snowfall for hundreds of years. City folk are not interested in all that – the icy streets make even walking a short distance dangerous. Local clinics and emergency wards resemble frontline hospitals, treating a seemingly endless number of patients with fractures and bruises.
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