Federal prosecutors in New Jersey on June 12 brought charges against eight people, including two Ukrainian nationals, who they allege were part of an international cybercrime ring that attempted to steal $15 million from a dozen U.S. financial institutions and the nation’s military payroll service.
Authorities
said that between March 2012 and June 2013 a crime ring hacked into the systems
of a dozen banks, payroll processing companies and government agencies, and
then diverted money from accounts to prepaid debit cards handled by the group.
The debit cards were obtained using stolen identities, and then used by
“cashers” employed by the group in Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts and New
York to withdraw the stolen funds.
The victimized institutions included Aon
Hewitt, Automated Data Processing Inc., Citibank, E-Trade, Electronic Payments
Inc., Fundtech Holdings LLC, iPayment Inc., JPMorgan Chase Bank, Nordstrom
Bank, PayPal, TD Ameritrade, TIAA-CREF, USAA, Veracity Payment Solutions Inc.
and the payroll arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.
While the indictment in federal court
in Newark notes that some institutions were successful in blocking the
criminals’ access to accounts, it does not highlight those institutions the
cybercrime ring was able to successfully siphon money from, or how exactly the
group managed to hack into their computer systems, The Boston Globe reported.
Authorities
said the group was allegedly led by Ukrainian Oleksiy Sharapka, 33, of Kyiv. Sharapka
is thought to have started the cyber fraud operation around the time he was deported
from the U.S. in 2012, after serving time in a federal prison in Massachusetts.
A second
Ukrainian identified as Leonid Yanovitsky, 38, also of Kyiv, is suspected in
the crime. Both he and Sharapka are thought to be at large here in Ukraine.
Four
individuals involved in the crime were arrested on June 12 in the U.S.,
including Oleg Pidtergerya, 49, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Robert Duboc, 40, of Malden,
Mass., Andrey Yarmolitskiy, 41, of Atlanta, and Ilya Ostapyuk, 31, of Brooklyn,
according to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. Two others, Richard Gunderson, 46, of
Brooklyn, and Lamar Taylor, 37, of Salem, Mass., are still being sought by
police.
“Cybercriminals
penetrated some of our most trusted financial institutions as part of a global
scheme that stole money and identities from people in the United States,”
Fishman said at a press conference on June 12.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached
at [email protected], or on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.
