WASHINGTON, July 25 (RIA Novosti) – US authorities on Thursday charged four Russian nationals and a Ukrainian man in connection with the theft more than 100 million credit card numbers breaching the computer networks of major US and international corporations in what is being called the largest hacking scheme ever to be prosecuted in the United States.
The five men stand accused of conspiring in a “worldwide scheme that targeted major corporate networks, stole more than 160 million credit card numbers and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses,” Paul Fishman, the US attorney for the district of New Jersey, said in a statement to the media Thursday.
The “prolific hacking organization” succeeded in penetrating “the secure computer networks of several of the largest payment-processing companies, retailers and financial institutions in the world,” prosecutors said in the indictment unsealed Thursday, Bloomberg reported.
Companies victimized in the scheme include the NASDAQ, 7-Eleven Inc., Heartland Payment Systems Inc., French retailer Carrefour S.A. and Dexia Bank Belgium, The Associated Press cited prosecutors as saying.
The Russian men indicted are Alexander Kalinin of St. Petersburg, Roman Kotov and Dmitry Smilianets of Moscow, and Vladimir Drinkman of Moscow and the city of Syktyvkar in northwestern Russia, according to Bloomberg. Mikhail Rytikov of Odessa, Ukraine, was also indicted in the case, Bloomberg cited prosecutors as saying.
They are accused of stealing the credit cards and selling them to resellers across the globe, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to companies and individuals, “including losses in excess of $300 million by just three of the corporate victims, and immeasurable losses to identity theft victims,” Bloomberg cited the indictment as saying.
Officials in Fishman’s office did not immediately respond to a voicemail seeking comment Thursday morning, but his spokesman told Reuters that the senior prosecutor was set to hold a news briefing later in the morning in Newark, New Jersey.
The suspects have been charged with crimes that include computer hacking conspiracy, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unauthorized computer access, Bloomberg reported.
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