A 27-year-old Russian man snared in an FBI scheme to catch computer hackers has been sentenced to three years in prison for convictions on 20 counts of conspiracy, fraud and related computer crimes.
Vasily Gorshkov (27) of Chelyabinsk, Russia, was also ordered by US District Judge John Coughenour to pay restitution of nearly $700 000 for losses he caused to Speakeasy Network of Seattle and the online credit card payment company PayPal of Palo Alto, California, US Attorney John McKay said Friday.
Gorshkov was one of two men from his hometown persuaded to travel to the United States as part of an FBI undercover investigation that arose out of a nationwide FBI investigation into Russian computer intrusions directed at Internet Service Providers, e-commerce sites and online banks in the United States.
The hackers defrauded PayPal in a scheme in which stolen credit card information was used to generate cash and pay for computer parts purchased from US vendors, the US attorney’s office said.
The FBI set up a bogus Seattle computer security company called Invita Security to snag the hackers, inviting them to the US to demonstrate their skills. They arrived on November 10, 2000, and met with undercover FBI agents, ostensibly to discuss a partnership.
Gorshkov discussed their hacking prowess at the videotaped meeting and took responsibility for various hacking activities, the US attorney said in a statement. Gorshkov shrugged off any concern about the FBI, saying the agency could not get them in Russia.
As the Russians demonstrated their skills at the shell company, the FBI used what amounted to computer eavesdropping to gather the tools it needed to reach across the Internet and break into their computer system in Russia.
The men were arrested after the meeting. Alexey Ivanov (23) was transported to Connecticut to face charges in a computer intrusion at the Online Information Bureau of Vernon, Connecticut.
The status of Ivanov’s case was not immediately known late Friday. Gorshkov and Ivanov were charged in federal court in Washington with conspiracy and 19 additional crimes involving Speakeasy, Nara Bank of Los Angeles, Central National Bank of Waco, Texas, and PayPal.
Court records alleged sinister pattern. First, the FBI
alleged, the hackers broke into computer systems. Then they sent e-mails to company officials demanding payment in exchange for not distributing or destroying sensitive documents, including financial records.
When the FBI accessed two of the men’s computers in Russia, agents found large databases of credit card information stolen from ISPs, the US attorney’s office said.
Data from the Russian computers also showed the men had gained unauthorised control over numerous computers and then used those computers to commit a massive fraud involving PayPal and online auction company e-Bay.
They established thousands of anonymous e-mail accounts at sites such as Hotmail and Yahoo!, then created associated accounts at PayPal with random identities and stolen credit card information.
Additional programmes allowed them to control e-Bay auctions so they could act as both seller and winning bidder at the same auction, then effectively pay themselves with stolen credit cards, court papers said. – Sapa-AP