Russian authorities arrested the kingpin of cybercrime Infraud Organization

Russian authorities arrested four alleged members of the international cyber theft ring tracked as ‘Infraud Organization.’

In February 2008, the US authorities dismantled the global cybercrime organization tracked as Infraud Organization, which was involved in stealing and selling credit card and personal identity data.

The Justice Department announced indictments for 36 people charged with being part of a crime ring. The group has been active since 2010 and was created in Ukraine by Svyatoslav Bondarenko. According to th experts, the activities of the gang caused $530 million in losses.

Bondarenko remained at large, but Russian co-founder Sergey Medvedev was arrested by the authorities in 2018.

Most of the members of the gang were arrested in the US (30), the remaining members come from Australia, Britain, France, Italy, Kosovo, and Serbia.

The indicted leaders of the organization included people from the United States, France, Britain, Egypt, Pakistan, Kosovo, Serbia, Bangladesh, Canada and Australia.

The motto of the Infraud Organization was “In Fraud We Trust,” it has a primary role in the criminal ecosystem as a “premier one-stop shop for cybercriminals worldwide,” explained Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Rybicki.

The Infraud Organization used a number of websites to commercialize the data, it implemented a classic and efficient e-commerce for the stolen card and personal data, implementing also a rating and feedback system and an escrow” service for payments in digital currencies like Bitcoin.

Last week, Russian authorities arrested Andrey Sergeevich Novak, an alleged leader of the gang. According to the TASS media agency, other three individuals (Kirill Samokutyaev, Konstantin Vladimirovich Bergman and Mark Avramovich Bergman) are under house arrest.

Russia’s FSB and law enforcement have detained four members of the Infraud Organization hacking group. Its purported founder Andrey Novak is wanted in the US on the accusations of cybercrime. As a source in law enforcement told TASS, Novak was arrested while three other purported hackers are under a house arrest.

“During intelligence-gathering activities, Russian special services with the operational support of the law enforcement and cooperation of the US law enforcement, managed to establish and detain four members of the Infraud Organization hacking group whose main income was the use of stolen credit card data.” reported the TASS,

“The purported founder of the criminal group, Andrey Sergeevich Novak, wanted in the US on the accusations of cybercrime, has been arrested for two months, another three members of the group – Kirill Samokutyaev, Konstantin Vladimirovich Bergman and Mark Avramovich Bergman have been detained under a house arrest,” the source said.

Novak, aka “Unicc,” “Faaxxx,” and “Faxtrod,” will be judged in Russia and will not be extradited to the United States.

“According to an informed source, Russia is not planning to extradite Novak to the US. “Russian legislation prohibits an extradition of its citizens to a foreign state,” the source said. That said, if a foreign citizen wanted abroad is among the arrested, that individual will be extradited following the investigation and court proceedings in Russia, the source added.” continues the press agency.

Recently, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced to have shut down the REvil ransomware gang, the group that is behind a long string of attacks against large organizations, such as Kaseya and JBS USA. The FSB claims to have identified all members of the REvil gang and monitored their operations.

The police operation was conducted by Russian authorities following a request by the United States that shared info about members of the gang.

The Russian police arrested 14 alleged members of the ransomware gang and raided 25 addresses seizing computer equipment and cryptocurrency wallets.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, cybercrime)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.