Is Russia Joining the Zeus Hunt?

Although its too early to know if this is Zeus related, Department "K", the Interior Ministry's Computer Crimes unit in Russia, released a press statement today about arrests which occurred over the weekend that sound suspiciously like the rest of the world-wide Zeus hunt. While there are really not enough details to proclaim this to be Zeus, its still praise-worthy action by the Russian government against criminals who are harming American interests over the Internet.



The headline on the official MVD website read Управлением «К» МВД России пресечена деятельность международной преступной группы, in English, Department K of the MVD suppresses the activity of an international criminal group.

The story details that a cybercrime group, lead by a Ukrainian national living in Russia, had stolen more than 20 million rubles from 17 different Russian banks between January and June 2010.

The criminal group, which consisted of at least 50 suspects, consisted of Russians, Ukrainians, and Armenians. They would use false passports to fool bank employees and establish bank accounts in assumed names. They used information stolen online to create fake credit cards which were used to steal further funds from online businesses based in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The story does not make clear how many were actually arrested, where the arrests took place, or whether all fifty suspects have been apprehended.

Those apprehended are being punished with "detention". The specific violations listed are дела по ч.2 ст.187 и ч.4 ст.159 УК РФ, parts 2 and 4 of section 187 of article 159 of the criminal code(?). According to the CyberPol.ru website, 159 is their "Fraud" statute, and 187 is the statute regarding "the manufacture or sale of counterfeit credit or payment cards and other payment documents."

The story has thus far only been seen in Russian speaking press, including stories in Kuban.kp.ru, Rian.ru, BFM.ru, and Rusnovosti.ru.


(image from BRM.RU)

While most of the stories do little more than echo the official story, BFM.ru adds the fact that the ring leader was a Ukrainian, and that SBERBANK had previously Issued a warning to their customers about a new form of fraud. In that warning, they quoted UniCreditBank director Alexander Vishnyakov warning them to never provide their PIN to anyone. Sberbank had seen an outbreak of SMS messages being sent to mobile phone numbers telling them their card was going to be blocked unless they replied with their PIN number, Expiration date, and Security Code. They also quoted HCFB's Vlad Guzhelev who said that "The amount of losses from illegal activity is very high." (Сумма потерь от противоправной деятельности очень высока. - ХКФБ Влад Гужелев.)

Congratulations to Department K! I hope they will continue to press against Cybercrime. We must all work together so that there are NO safe havens for cybercriminals.

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Sir Paul Speaks the Truth: Cyber Law Enforcement is a Good Investment

In this morning's BBC News, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Paul Stephenson is the focus of their story, Met police chief warns on internet crime. We would do well in the United States to listen to the points he is making.

Sir Paul told the BBC "If British crime gangs take up e-crime as enthusiastically as we fear, we must match the skills at their disposal." He says that for too long the attitude of the public, and presumably the funding agencies, has been "Leave cyber-crime to the banks and retailers to sort out." Sir Paul calls this a "fundamentally misguided argument."

In England and Wales there are 385 law enforcement officers dedicated exclusively to cybercrime, but 85% of those are dealing with human trafficking and child pornography issues, leaving only 60 officers to fight bank fraud. Last year the Metropolitan Police had an e-crime unit budget of only £2.75 million pounds. Yet Sir Paul says "It has been estimated that for every £1 spent on the virtual task force, it has prevented £21 in theft."

We have a very similar situation in the United States. Sir Paul says that losses in online fraud and theft reached £52 billion globally in 2007 ($82 billion USD). (Note, this is a far more reasonable number than the $1 Trillion recently fed to the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation commmitee by the AT&T CSO Edward Amoroso (6 page PDF). For more on the mythical $1 Trillion figure, please see John Leyden's Cybercrime Mythbusters story at The Reg.)

I'm totally ok with the $82 Billion figure, because I can get there with real data from scientifically based studies. For instance, the FTC's Identity Theft Survey in 2006 found that we had more than 8.3 million victims (3.3%) in the United States. Javelin Strategy's 2010 Identity Theft Survey put the number at 11.1 million US citizens, losing an average of $4,841 per person for $54 Billion in US losses. (For comparison, Javelin found 8.4 million US victims in 2006 while FTC found 8.3 million. I believe that shows their methodology is sound, and that we can accept their current numbers as well.) The losses per person average seems high when compared with actual losses reported in the FTC's annual Consumer Sentinel Report (101 page PDF) where losses were $2,721 per person for 630,604 actual reported losses, but I'm willing to accept the difference for now. Either way, lets agree that US losses for 11 million victims would be in the range of $30 to $50 Billion.

Think about those numbers another way. In 2006 we had 8.3 (or 8.4) million victims of identity theft, mostly via cyber crime means. In 2009 we had 11.1 million victims of identity theft. So the crime has increased by nearly 33% in three years. One would think this would mean we have dramatic increases in our budget to FIGHT cyber crime as well. But that is sadly not true.

Despite both the broadly held public perspection and the facts that cyber crime is increasing through the roof, the FBI's budget is only increasing by 4%. The budget states that the number of FBI Agents being requested in the FY 2011 budget is 14,169, an increase of 347 agents from the FY2010 budget. An increase of 408 Intelligence Analysts (across FBI, DEA, and ATF) is also requested raising the number of Intelligence Analysts across those three agencies to 4,558.

Similarly, despite overwhelming evidence that our court systems are overworked and underfunded, especially in their ability to prosecute cyber crime, we are only seeing a 5.5% budget increase request for FY11 for the US Attorney's offices.

What is being done to fix this? Clearly we need a dramatic increase in the number of agents and tools available to fight cyber crime. But a review of the FBI's FY 2011 budget request to congress shows that they are planning to add "Computer Intrusion" responsibilities to 163 personnel, resulting in an increase of 81 "Full-Time Equivalent" additional people to fight Computer Intrusion. (See: FY11 FBI Budget Summary (Excel spreadsheet).

These numbers are further broken down in the "Program Increases by Decision Unit" tab of the spreadsheet Exhibits: Salaries & Expenses which shows that within those 163 personnel, only 63 are agents, of which 32 are tasked to Counter Terrorism Counter Intelligence and 31 are tasked to Criminal Enterprises and Federal Crimes.

Despite the fact that the FBI is the primary law enforcement body for responding to many of the crimes passed by the Congress, the FBI does not consider crime fighting their primary responsibility. When we review their entire FY11 budget, we see that they have their mission broken down into two broad goals, and their budget divided between those goals:

GOAL	Description	2011 Request (000s)
	GRAND TOTAL OF FBI BUDGET:	$8,083,475
1	Prevent Terrorism/Promote the Nation's Security	$4,871,077
1.1	Prevent, disrupt, and defeat terrorist operations before they occur	$3,721,749
1.2	Strengthen partnerships to prevent, deter, and respond to terrorist incidents	$417,973
1.3	Prosecure those who have committed, or intend to commit, terrorist acts in the United States	$0
1.4	Combat Espionage against the United States	$731,355
2	Prevent Crime, Enforce Federal Laws...	$3,212,398
2.1	Strengthen partnerships for safe communities and enhance the Nation's capacity to prevent, solve, and control crime	$681,488
2.2	Reduce the threat, incidence, and prevalence of violent crime	$1,202,812
2.3	Prevent, suppress, and intervene in crimes against children	$26,035
2.4	Reduce the threat, trafficking, use, and related violence of illegal drugs	$91,733
2.5	Combat public and corporate corruption, fraud, economic crime, and cybercrime	$1,140,531
2.6	Uphold the civil and Constitutional rights of all Americans	$69,799
2.7	Vigorously enforce and represent the interests of the United States in all matters over which the Department has jurisdition	$0
2.8	Protect the integrity and ensure the effective operation of the Nation’s bankruptcy system	$0

This makes it difficult to tell how much money is actually being spent on Cyber crime, since it has now been lumped in with Public Corruption, Fraud, and Economic Crime, but it would be nice to think that a large part of that line item was cyber.

Does that line up with the FBI's stated priorities? At a risk of mixing church and state, a pastor I know is fond of saying "Show me a man's checkbook and I'll show you his priorities."

According to the FBI's National Security Priorities page, their top priorities, in order, are:

1. Counterterrorism (51.2% of budget)
2. Counterintelligence (9% of budget)
3. Cyber Crime (14.1% of budget - true number masked by combining #3,4,7)
4. Public Corruption (combined with #3,4,7)
5. Civil Rights (1% of budget)
6. Organized Crime
7. White Collar Crime
8. Major Thefts / Violent Crime (14.8%)

Its easy to see from the budget above that Counter Terrorism has swallowed the FBI. Yes, its their #1 priority, and that shows. But is Cyber really their #3, when, combining Cyber, Organized and White Collar Crimes together still gives them only 14.1% of the budget, while Major Thefts/Violent Crime gets 14.8%?

The argument could be made that not all Computer crime falls into the category of Computer Intrusion, but we seem similar tiny increases elsewhere. The FBI is requesting only $15 Million to improve its "Combat International Organized Crime" effort, which will only add 18 positions, including 3 agents and 7 attorneys. (See: Combatting International Organized Crime.

The President's FY 11 Budget request directs that the Law Enforcement Components of the entire US Department of Justice be increased from $12.6 Billion to $13.2 Billion. An additional cyber-related increase is not for crime fighting per se, but to increase the security of the DOJ's own computer systems and upgrade their technology.

Here is a graph from the President's budget for the Department of Justice outlining new hires:

click for larger version. Extracted from DOJ Budget Presentation.

$300.6 million to strengthen national security and fight terrorism

$234.6 million to restore confidence in our markets - with a $100 million for economic fraud enforcement and $100 million for infrastructure improvements

$121.9 million to reduce the threat, incidence, and prevalence of violent crime and drug trafficking

Did you notice it too? The absence of the big increase in funding and personnel to fight cyber crime?

The FBI FY11 budget asks for 13,057 personnel in the category "Criminal Investigative Series (1811), which is an increase in 276 Special Agents.

The FBI FY11 budget asks for 3,165 personnel in the category "Intelligence Series" (0132), which is an increase in 187 Intelligence Analysts.

In keeping with Sir Paul's comments about Cyber Crime in the UK, I'd like to suggest that someone should study the above numbers, study our cyber crime laws in America and the size of the problem, and then make a determination about whether we should adding 1,000 new Cybercrime agents instead of a mere handful.

In the meantime, States need to serious study this problem as well. The message in this budget is clear. THE FBI IS TOO BUSY FIGHTING TERRORISM TO HELP YOU WITH YOU MINOR CYBER CRIMES. I am an ENORMOUS fan of the FBI, and believe that the investment to fight terrorism is necessary and beneficial. I also believe the FBI has incredible cybercrime agents, as evidenced by this week's Zeus Arrests. But its clear they don't have the manpower to scale to the size of the problem.

The FBI's Internet Crime & Complaint Center 2009 Annual Report received 336,655 complaints of victimization due to Cyber Crime and online fraud.

My question is who is supposed to be helping Ma & Pa with the identity theft that they have experienced? Who is supposed to help with the undelivered eBay goods? or the phisher who just drained your bank account? 336,655 times last year someone called the FBI and asked for help. You've seen the budget.

Something has to change.

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The Big One: Zeus Operation Trident BreACH

The FBI's Cyber Division has just concluded a press conference where they announced the culmination of Operation Trident BreACH. Finally we can tell "the rest of the story" of the Zeus arrests that began in the UK earlier this week and were followed by Operation ACHing Mule in New York yesterday.

This operation began in Omaha Nebraska in May of 2009 when FBI agents were alerted that 46 separate bank accounts had received ACH payments that seemed to be tied to malware. Unveiled in this press release publicly for the first time is the fact that this particular Zeus group had attempted to ACH transfer $220 Million, and actually got away with $70 million!

On September 30th, the Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, had fifty SBU officers as well as members of their elite tactical operations team hit eight locations looking for the leadership of this international financial cybercrime ring. They were able to arrest five of the ringleaders, who are now being questioned.

This operation included the FBI's Omaha Cyber Crime Task Force, New York Money Mule Working Group, and Newark Cyber Crime Task Force, the Netherlands Policy Agency, the Ukrainian SBU, the Netherlands Police Agency's National High-Tech Crime Unit, and the United Kingdom's Metropolitan Police Service.

Pim Takkenberg, team leader of the Netherlands National High-Tech Crime Unit was quoted as saying their "involvement in this international operation is representative of the commitment that the KLPD and the National Prosecutor's Office have made to the fight against cyber crime in addition to the need for worldwide cooperation among all partners."

Well said, Pim!

Hopefully even more details about these arrests will be revealed in the near future.

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FBI's Operation ACHing Mule

While visiting a Russian news site working on getting proper Cyrillic spellings for the Zeus criminals, I saw the first time the name of the FBI Operation. "Operation ACHing Mule" -- Love it!

ACHing of course has the double meaning -- these mules are in pain (aching) -- but also that these mules are performing "Automated Clearing House" bank transfers between victim bank accounts and their "mule" bank accounts.

Here is how "webplanet.ru" spelled them in their story. I've inserted the English next to each name:

"Citizens of Russia"

Артём Цыганков (Artem Tsygankov *), Софья Дикова (Sofya Dikova *), Максим Панферов (Maxim Panferov *), Кристина Извекова (Kristina Izvekova *), Артём Семёнов (Artem Semenov *), Альмира Рахматулина (Almira Rakhmatulina *), Юлия Шпирко (Julia Shpirko *), Максим Мирошниченко (Maxim Miroshnichenko), Юлия Сидоренко (Julia Sidorenko), Кристина Свечинская (Kristina Svechinskaya), Станислав Расторгуев (Stanislav Rastorguev *), Маргарита Пахомова (Margarita Pakhomova), Илья Карасёв (Ilya Karasev *), Марина Мисюра (Marina Misyura), Николай Гарифулин (Nikolai Garifulin *), Дмитрий Сапрунов (Dmitry Saprunov *), Касум Адыгюзелов (Kasum Adigyuzelov), Сабина Рафикова (Sabina Rafikova), Адель Гатауллин (Adel Gataullin), Руслан Ковтанюк (Ruslan Kovtanyuk), Юлия Клепикова (Yulia Klepikova *) , Наталия Дёмина (Natalia Demina), Александр Сорокин (Alexandr Sorokin), Александр Фёдоров (Alexander Fedorov) and Антон Юферицын (Anton Yuferitsyn)

"Citizens of Moldova"
Марина Опря (Marina Oprea *), Каталина Кортак (Catilina Cortac *), Йон Волосчук (Ion Volosciuc *), Лильян Адам (Lilian Adam *), Дорин Кодряну (Dorin Codreanu *), Виктория Опинка (Victoria Opinca) and Алина Турута (Alina Turuta)

"Citizenship not specified"
Александра Киреева (Alexander Kireev) and Константина Акобирова (Konstantin Akobirov)

* - SEVENTEEN of the criminals listed are still "at large" are indicated above with an asterisk. If you are in the New York, New Jersey, or Las Vegas areas and party with Russian criminals, you might have more information about them. Please see yesterday's blog post, New York FBI: 17 Wanted Zeus Criminals if you think you can help.

The Operation ACHing Mule press release (34 page PDF) lists many separate but related law enforcement cases, and the charges for each case.

In each of the cases below, the charges are given and the fines. I'm going to list the charge categories here, and then we'll show the same number after each person's name:

1 - Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud (up to 30 years, $1 M)
2 - Conspiracy to Possess False Identification Documents (up to 15 years, $250k)
3 - False Use of Passport (up to 10 years, $250k)
4 - Money Laundering (up to 20 years, $500k)
5 - Transfer of False Identification Documents (up to 5 years, $250k)
6 - Bank Fraud (up to 30 years, $1 M)
7 - Production of False Identification Documents (up to 15 years, $250k)
8 - Posession of False Immigration Documents (up to 10 years, $250k)
9 - False Use of Passport (up to 10 years, $250k)
10 - Conspiracy to Produce False Identification Documents (up to 15 years, $250k)
11 - Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud (up to 20 years, $250k)
12 - Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering (up to 20 years, $250k)

On each charge, the fine can be replaced with "twice the gross gain or loss" of their actual crime, so for example "$250k fine or up to twice the gross gain or loss."

In reality, no one ever gets NEARLY the sentence. So for example, Anton Yuferitsyn has already been sentenced. Instead of "20 years and $500k fine" he got ten months and $38k in restitution.

United States v. Artem Tsygankov, et al. (10 Mag. 2126)

Artem Tsygankov, age 22 (charged with: 1, 2)
Sofia Dikova, age 20 (1,2)
Maxim Panferov, age 23 (1,2,3)
Kristina Izvekova, age 22 (1,2,3)

United States v. Artem Semenov, et al (10 Mag. 2154)

Artem Semenov, age 23 (1,2,3)
Almira Rakhmatulina, age 20 (1,2,3)
Julia Shpirko, age 20 (1, 2)

United States v. Maxim Miroshnichenko, et al. (10 Mag. 2141)

Maxim Miroshnichenko, age 22 (1,2)
Julia Sidorenko, age 22 (1,2,3)

United States v. Marina Oprea (10 Mag. 2142)

Marina Oprea, age 20, (1,2)
Catalina Cortac, age 21 (1,2)
Ion Volosciuc, age 19 (1,2)
Lilian Adam, age 21 (1,2)

United States v. Kristina Svechinskaya, et al. (10 Mag. 2137)

Kristina Svechinskaya, age 21 (1,3)
Stanislav Rastorguev, age 22 (1,3)

United States v. Margarita Pakhomova (10 Mag. 2136)

Margarita Pakhomova, age 21 (1,3)

United States v. Ilya Karasev (10 Mag. 2127)

Ilya Karasev, age 22 (1,2,3)

United States v. Marina Misyura (10 Mag. 2125)

Marina Misyura, age 22 (1,3)

United States v. Nikolai Garifulin, et al. (10 Mag. 2138)

Nikolai Garifulin, age 21 (1)
Dmitry Saprunov, age 22 (1,3)

United States v. Dorin Codreanu (10 Mag. 2152)

Dorin Codreanu, age 21, (1)

United States v. Victoria Opinca, et al. (10 Mag. 2153)

Victoria Opinca, age 21, (1)
Alina Turuta, age 21, (1)

United States v. Alexander Kireev (10 Mag. 1356)

Alexander Kireev, age 22, (4)

United States v. Kasum Adigyuzelov (10 Mag. 1622)

Kasum Adigyuzelov, age 25, (1,5)

United States v. Sabina Rafikova (10 Mag. 1623)

Sabina Rafikova, age 23, (6,7,8)

United States v. Konstantin Akobirov (10 Mag. 1659)

Konstantin Akobirov, age 25, (6,9)

United States v. Adel Gataullin (10 Mag. 1680)

Adel Gataullin, age 22, (6, 7, 9)

United States v. Ruslan Kovtanyuk (10 Mag. 1827)

Ruslan Kovtanyuk, age 24, (6, 9)

United States v. Yulia Klepikova, et al. (10 Mag. 1753)

Yulia Klepikova, age 22 (1, 9, 10)
Natalia Demina, age 23 (1, 9)

United States v. Alexandr Sorokin (10 Cr. 437 (RWS))

Alexandr Sorokin, age 23 (4)

Plead guilty on June 16, 2010 (sentencing Oct 4, 2010)

United States v. Alexander Fedorov (10 Cr. 873 (KTD))

Alexander Fedorov, age 24 (4)

Plead guilty on September 27, 2010 (sentencing Jan 5, 2011)

United States v. Anton Yuferitsyn (10 Cr. 134 (JGK))

Anton Yuferitsyn, age 26 (4)

Plead guilty on Feb 19, 2010, sentenced on June 25, 2010 to ten months in prison and $38,413 in restitution.

United States v. Jamal Beyrouti et al.(10 Mag. 2134)

Jamal Beyrouti, age 53 (11, 12)
Lorenzo Babbo, age 20 (11,12)
Vincenzo Vitello, age 29 (11,12)

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New York FBI: 17 Wanted Zeus Criminals

The New York FBI needs your help. Today they announced indictments against thirty-seven cybercriminals involved with Zeus. Ten of these were arrested previously in the recent past. Ten more were arrested today. The other seventeen are "At Large".

I'll let you read for yourself the charges against the many criminals by visiting the FBI's New York Field Office announcement:

FBI New York Press Release

A wanted poster, showing the seventeen "At Large" criminals is available here:

Seventeen Zeus Criminals Wanted by FBI

If you find clues about any of these people make sure to get them to your local FBI office! (Send us a copy too! gar at cis dot uab dot edu)

Wanted: Ilya Karasev

Known aliases: Goran Dobric, Alexis Herris, Fransoise Lewenstadd, Fortune Binot, Diman Karasev

Status: J-1 Visa issued May 2008. Converted to F-1 Visa in December 2008. Terminated January 11, 2010

Actions:

April 13, 2010 - presented a Belgium passport in the name of Fransoise Lewenstadd to a TD Bank branch to open an account.

April 19, 2010 - presented a Greek passport in the name of "Alexis Herris" to open a TD Bank account.

June 2, 2010 - received $4200 stolen funds into the TD Bank Herris Account. Withdrew $4,000 from a TD Bank branch in Ocean Township, NJ.

July 1, 2010 - presented a foreign passport in the name "Fortune Binot" to open a TD Bank account in Brooklyn, New York

May 3, 2010 - "Herris" opened a Bank of America account. Received $12,300 in unauthorized wire transfer to that account.

May 20, 2010 - "Herris" withdrew $9,000 from Neptune, NJ branch. Made two debit card purchases totaling $3581.40 at a convenience store in Jersey City, NJ. (That's a lot of Doritos!!!)

Several more items are known with BOA withdraws from Little Silver, Little Eatontown, and Red Bank, New Jersey from a Bank of America "Fortune Binot" account.

There was also JP Morgan Chase activity.

Open Source Intelligence:

Facebook Profile

An Ilya Karasev, with many friends in New Jersey, has a Facebook account. In this picture from the account, he looks to be the same person as pictured above.



Other photos on his site include Ilya riding a bus, standing in front of Applebee's Time Square in New York. Ilya attended Volgograd State Technical University, class of 2005, where he majored in "Motor Transport."

Wanted: Dmitry Saprunov

Known Aliases: Lean Marc Garrot, Bazil Kozloff, Milorad Petrovic

Status: Entered the United States on May 19, 2009 on a visa.

A cooperating subject says that Saprunov lives as roommates with fellow co-conspirator Nikolai "Robert" Garifulin in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Subject says they recently accessed a safety deposit box, probably at Wachovia Bank. Gariflun recently traveled to Russia to "pay the hackers" carrying $150,000 cash concealed in his luggage.

Actions:

June 4, 2010 - Saprunov opens a TD Bank account in Manhattan using a foreign passport in the name of "Bazil Kozloff".

June 7, 2010 - Saprunov uses the Kozloff identity to open a Bank of America account in Bronx, New York.

June 11, 2010 - Saprunov opens a TD Bank account in Brooklyn using a passport from Belgium in the name of "Lean Marc Garrot".

June 12, 2010 - Saprunov opens a BOA account in Long Island, New York using the Garrot identity.

June 29, 2010 - $14,000 is wired to the Kozloff BOA account.

July 6, 2010 - just under $14000 is wired to the Garrot BOA Account.

July 6, 2010 - "Garrot" withdraws $13,9450 in four transactions from a teller and three ATM machines in Bradley Beach, New Jersey

Open Source Intelligence:

Facebook Profile:


(from the Facebook album "AVE" (Possibly Avenue New York Club?) by Sergey Palychev.
Also pictured: Alejandro Martinez, Elizaveta Osadchikh, Anastasia Yudintseva, Natalya Vassilyeva



(Interesting note: Ildar Mukhamedov is a friend of both Saprunov and Karasev on facebook, and they are friends of each others.)

Watcha Got?

More will be added as time allows. If you have something you'd like to share, send it in!

Go Go, Maltego!!

Wanted: Lilian Adam

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Marina Oprea

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Kristina Izvekova

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Sofya Dikova

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Artem Tsygankov

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Catalina Cortac

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Ion Volosciuc

Known Aliases:

---

Testimony from State Department DSS Agent

Wanted: Artem Semenov

Known Aliases: Valentin Kulakov, Alexey Michinnik, Arvind Shah, Fred Teschemacher, Tokin Waaran, David Warren

Entered the country June 1, 2009 on a J1 Visa, stating that he was a full-time student at Kazan State University of Technology.

Arrested December 17, 2009 by NYPD at a Manhattan branch of Bank of America, trying to open an account in the name of Nicholas Congleton. Arraigned on December 18th. Failed to appear in court on February 22, 2010.

On January 15, 2010, Customs agents intercepted a package from the Republic of Moldova destined for Artem shipping new passports to him. The passports were from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and were issued in the names of Petar Stojanovic and Victor Rajkov.

A collaborating witness testified that Artem recruited Almira and Julia (below) to work for him. The CW says that the two were provided with tickets to fly from New York City to Las Vegas on August 25, 2010.

Wanted: Almira Rakhmatulina

Known Aliases: Natalia Davidova, Irina Sergeeva

On June 6, 2010 Almira entered the country traveling on a J1 Student Visa stating that she was a full-time student at Omsk State University.

On July 16, 2010, Almira opened a TD Bank account in the name of Natalia Davidova using a Greek passport in that name. On July 17th, the same passport was used to open a Wachovia Bank account in New York City.

On July 20, 2010, Almira opened a TD Bank account in the name of Irina Sergeeva, using the same Brooklyn street address that she used with the Natalia Davidova account. A Greek passport for the Sergeeva alias was used as proof of identity.

A balance check of that account was made using an ATM in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 17, 2010.

Wanted: Julia Shpirko

Known Aliases: Ekaterina Kaloeva, Ekaterina Smirnova


On June 6, 2010, Shpirko entered the country traveling on a J1 Student Visa stating that she was a full-time student at Omsk State University.

On or about July 20, 2010, Shpirko opened a TD Bank account was opened in Manhattan in the name of Ekaterina Smirnova.

---

Wanted: Yulia Klepikova

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Maxim Panferov

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Nikolai Garafulin

Known Aliases:

Wanted: Dorin Codreanu

Known Aliases: Savvas Paian

On April 21, 2010, Dorin opened a Chase account using a Greek passport in the name Savvas Paian.

On May 11, 2010, the Chase-Paian account received $10,246 from a victim in Illionois.

On May 18, 2010, Dorin opened a TD Bank account using the same identity, but making it a business account in the name "Savvas Import Group LLC".

Open Source Intelligence:

Savvas Import Group, LLC is a "fruit and vegetable" importer, using the address "1612 Kings Highway Apartment 48, Brooklyn, NY 11229-1210", according to Manta.com.
Manta puts their phone number as 347.530.9785 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              347.530.9785      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

That phone number also belongs to "Brooklyn Fruit Vegetable Growers Shippers" and "Neptune Fruit Vegetable Growers Shippers" which both have the same street address as well.



On June 3, 2010, the

Wanted: Stanislav Rastorguev

Known Aliases:

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MiniPost: UK Zeus Criminals Identified

Eleven of those arrested for committing financial cybercrimes using Zeus malware in the UK have now been formally charged and named, according to a story in this morning's Guardian from which I quote:

Eight people have been charged with conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. They are Ukrainian Yuriy Korovalenko, 28, from Chingford, Essex; Ukrainian Yevhen Kulibaba, 32, from Chingford; Latvian Karina Kostromina, 33, from Chingford; Estonian Aleksander Kusner, 27, from Romford, Essex; Ukrainian Roman Zenyk, 29, of Romford; Belorussian Eduard Babaryka, 26, from Romford; Latvian Ivars Poikans, 29, from Harlow, Essex; and Latvian Kaspars Cliematnieks, 24, from Harlow.

Two have been charged with conspiracy to defraud: Ukrainians Milka Valerij, 29, and Iryna Prakochyk, 23, from Chingford.

Georgian Zurab Revazishvili, 34, from Romford, is charged with offences under the Identity Cards Act 2005.

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Major Zeus Bust in the UK: Nineteen Zbot Thieves Arrested

The Metropolitan Police are to be congratulated this morning on the largest Zeus arrest to date. News broke on September 28th that the Met's PCeU Police Central e-crime Unit had arrested nineteen criminals in relation to a large Zeus or Zbot trojan network.

The Daily Mail has a set of great pictures of the criminals being taken into custody from their homes in their story, Hi-tech crime police quiz 19 people over internet bank scam that netted hackers up to £20m from British accounts. Police raided the homes simultaneously in the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday. These two pictures are part of five you can find there:





In case you don't travel much, £20 million pounds is a lot of money. That's roughly $31 Million USD. The criminals were stealing "about two million pounds per month". For comparison, the FBI released second quarter bank theft numbers last week. From April 1 to June 31 there were 1135 bank robberies and eleven bank burglaries in the United States, which earned criminals only $8 million USD or £5 million pounds.

In otherwords, this one Zeus gang stole more money in three months than ALL TRADITIONAL BANK ROBBERIES in the United States during the same length of time.

Although many folks haven't heard of the PCeU, their Mission Statement is

To improve the police response to victims of e-crime by developing the capability of the Police Service across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, co-ordinating the law enforcement approach to all types of e-crime, and by providing a national investigative capability for the most serious e-crime incidents.

15 men and 4 women were arrested, ranging in age from 23 to 47 years old. Detective Chief Inspector Terry Wilson of the Metropolitan Police credits the arrest to a Virtual Task Force composed of law enforcement, computer experts, and bank security personnel who worked together to track the movements of the criminals. Sounds a lot like the InfraGard model to me -- a private public partnership anchored on the FBI where computer security experts and personnel working in Critical Infrastructures, such as the Financial Industry, share information to stop criminals and terrorists.

Despite their financial success, the Daily Mail reports that the ringleader, "in his 20s, and his wife, an accomplice in the scam, were arrested in an unremarkable third-floor flat in Chingford, Essex.

Despite this raid, there are still at least 162 "online" Zeus servers that continue to gather stolen credentials from compromised computers, according to the invaluable ZeusTracker service.

We've documented dozens of stories in this blog about Zeus over the past year, and are excited to see this most significant law enforcement action to date.

The clock is ticking . . . who is going to have the best arrest before we all meet up in three weeks?

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