The Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation opened a case under Articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 272 (Illegal access to computer information) and 187 (Illegal circulation of means of payment). Investigators filed petitions in court for the arrest of a whole group of people, which were granted on Friday evening.
Among those arrested is one of the founders of The Infraud Organization, Andrei Novak (Unicc, aka Faaxxx).
It was also decided to take into custody Estonian citizen Kirill Samokutyaev, a member of The Infraud. He was already tried in Russia in 2018. Then he was detained in Shcheremetevo while trying to illegally smuggle 56 thousand euros across the border. Then he was sentenced to a fine.
A decision was also made to arrest the founders of the Dutch company BERGMAN MEYER CAPITAL GROUP B.V. and the owners of a number of Russian companies, Mark Bergman and Konstantin Bergman.
The Infraud platform, which provides services for fraudulent Internet crimes, was created in 2010 by Ukrainian Svyatoslav Bondarenko, who worked under the nicknames Obnon, Rector and Helkern. Infraud members and partners have worked throughout the world and in the United States. The group expected to steal about $2.2 billion from individuals, merchants and financial institutions; the actual damage exceeded $568 million.
Members of the organization sold and purchased over 4 million hacked credit card numbers.
Infraud called itself the “Ministry of Fraud” and adopted the motto “In Fraud We Trust” – a parody of the official US slogan “In God We Trust”, printed on every dollar bill.
In 2018, Russian hacker Sergei Medvedev, who ran Infraud after Bondarenko’s disappearance, was arrested in Bangkok at the request of the US FBI. During a search of his home, documents and a computer were seized, and 100 thousand bitcoins were found in his accounts.
Sergei Medvedev, also known as Stells, segmed and serjbear, was extradited to the United States. At his trial in Nevada County in March 2021, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Let us recall that on January 14, 2022, the FSB announced the final defeat of another hacker group – REvil.
The active work of the FSB of the Russian Federation began after in July 2021, Joe Biden, during a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, called on Russia to take measures to suppress the activities of hackers operating on its territory.
The Kremlin then reported that Putin declared Russia’s readiness “to jointly suppress criminal manifestations in the information space.”
“ВЧК ОГПУ”