Last week an international intervention by FBI corps  led to the arrest of 16 people that are suspected  of participating in a website where stolen personal data were traded  and phishing attacks were launched, USA Today reported  . 

The operation  involved 6 different states  in the USA (New York, Texas, Tennessee, Nebraska, Georgia and Ohio) and  two European countries (Romania and Poland), but we can’t exclude that the investigation would have been conducted on  other countries as well...

Such enquiry started in 2004 with an investigation over a case of phishing  attacks against a bank where more than 100.000 credit and debit cards from more than 1.000 customer were jeopardized and sold on specific forums.

Later that year, the FBI discovered these activities and developed a program to limit the growth of such forums, but after a brief stop  many other forums were created  with new security measures to avoid detection.

According to federal Officials, the arrests testify FBI’s commitment against cybercrime, especially concerning investigations aimed  to wipe off  online credit cards frauds. Specifically, the FBI says it is working with local law enforcement officials in the USA and Eastern Europe to detect groups or single people leading this sort of illicit business.

It is interesting to notice that such groups commonly use “mules” or middlemen to forward cash and credit cards to buyers and sellers in exchange for a slice of the profit. This would be a reasonable explication for the vertiginous  increasing of spam that in last months have targeted  job hunters carrying fake job-offers.This  activity was first  noticed by the security company Panda Software  which hypothesized  that those offers were actually attempts to find  'mules' to launder stolen money.

The messages, which came from an antiques shop in Poland, offered positions  as sales representatives to handle transactions outside the country.

But answering the email meant  to become ”mules” , that is to receive money in personal bank accounts in exchange for commission, and being then asked to send the money to accounts belonging to the fraudsters.

According to Panda, in case the fraud was  discovered it would be the mule who would be held criminally responsible. 

But thanks to users who promptly informed the authorities about similar “weird” messages, a team composed by FBI officials and local police was  able to trace back the attackers and to arrest the people involved in such  activities:
"Cybercriminals will no longer be able to hide behind borders to conduct their illicit business," James Finch, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, said in a statement.

The problem in the problem for the “federals” is about prisoners’ extradition. Indeed, being the suspects Romanian citizens who have always operated in Romania and since their computer servers have always run in Romania, there’s little the FBI could do to carry them to the USA..

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Whack to death Written by Guest on 2006-11-13 10:53:39

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