Intelligence Center » Russian father-son team accused of online fraud by U.S

Russian father-son team accused of online fraud by U.S

Bloomberg – (International) A Russian father and son from Moscow have been charged by federal prosecutors in New York with taking part in a scheme to gain illegal computer access to U.S. bank accounts through bogus e-commerce Web sites. The pair was named in an indictment unsealed January 17 in federal court that alleges they and others controlled U.S.-registered companies and operated a business that bought and sold securities. The defendants took unauthorized charges on customers’ credit cards by buying the numbers illegally or by malware they surreptitiously installed on victims’ computers. The father, arrested last March, arrived in New York January 16 following his extradition by Swiss authorities, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office said. His son remains at large. The pair held out U.S.-registered firms Sofeco LLC, Pintado LLC, and Tallit LLC as legitimate Internet merchants with Web sites that appeared to offer goods and services. They also engaged in a scheme from June 2004 to February 2005 to gain access to accounts of U.S. victims, and attempted to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars into bank accounts they controlled at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a company identified as Asia Europe America’s Bank, prosecutors said. The defendants, through Rim Investment Management Ltd., maintained an account at Ameritrade Inc. and bought and sold securities in publicly traded companies. The two men are accused of committing securities fraud by buying and selling thousands of shares of companies by trading in the accounts of U.S. victims, prosecutors said. The indictment describes July 2004 meetings between the pair and unidentified others in Cyprus. Unnamed co-conspirators transferred almost $300,000 from the financial services account of a person in the U.S. to a bank account controlled by the pair.

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-17/russian-father-son-team-accused-of-online-fraud-by-u-s-.html

Disclaimer: This news synopsis is taken from the DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report,a daily [Monday through Friday] summary of open-source published information concerning significant critical infrastructure issues; a 10-day archive of the DOSIR can be found at: http://www.dhs.gov/iaipdailyreport.