
Karma does exist, and bad deeds do not go unpunished. Ukrainian cyber criminal Sergei Vovnenko, known by his nicknames Fly (Fly), Flycracker and MUXACC1, the owner of an underground carder forum, received
41 months in prison . It was this guy who terrorized a famous journalist Brian Krebs several years ago. He tried to substitute Brian when he mailed him 1 gram of heroin and called the police with a message about the spread of drugs. Fortunately, Brian took root in advance at the Russian-speaking forum and learned in advance about Sergei’s plans, so he managed to warn the police.
Krebs has already spoken in detail
about this story . In the Russian-speaking cybercrime world, Brian is fiercely hated for his investigations and doxing community members. In 2013, one of the flyers under the nickname Fly began to send Krebs mocking tweets and links to malicious pages, probably trying to hook the Trojan on his computer. In his LiveJournal blog, Mukha also launched an active campaign, publishing copies of credit reports, the home address of Krebs, a map of the area with his house, photos of the front door and other confidential details about the journalist.
Brian Krebs did not sit with folded arms. He conducted his own investigation and, thanks to the specialists of the Russian company Group-IB, learned that Mukha is the administrator of the closed Russian-speaking forum on the card of thecc.bz (now the forum does not work).
Having secretly infiltrated the forum, Brian found a large discussion thread, where Mukha asked his comrades-in-arms to give up Bitcoin to buy heroin for Krebs. According to the plan, the carders were going to buy “gerych” in the Silk Road store (currently not working) - and send it to the journalist’s home address. Immediately after that, it was planned to call the police, who were to discover the package of the drug with Brian Krebs - and arrest him for possession or distribution of the drug (in general, for anything).
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Members have carefully studied the range of heroin sellers in Silk Road and selected the most reliable seller with a good reputation.
The plan was partially successful. Carders really collected the necessary amount, then Mukha called the local police station and said that his “neighbor” was a drag dealer, drug addicts go to him every day, and drugs even come to him by mail.
But only Brian went to the police beforehand and said that Mukha and his Ukrainian friends were plotting against him, so that he would soon receive a parcel by mail and call the police. As it should be, the goods soon came in the form of a glossy magazine with glued bags on the cover of a magazine with advertising. Brian immediately called the police, and the officers were convinced that the packs contained almost pure heroin.
Mucha did not calm down on this, and soon he sent a funeral ornament in the shape of a cross with a
funeral card to the door of Brian Krebs.
Probably bought it on someone else's credit card.
After this story, Brian Krebs became extremely interested in the identity of Mucha. The guys from Group-IB helped him by
finding out the mailing address
mazafaka@libero.it , which Fly had spotted on one of the sites. In 2013, this mailbox was hacked by someone, they found there a bunch of logs from keyloggers and was linked to another email address
777flyck777@gmail.com . Of course, all the addresses were anonymous, but it turned out that Mucha had installed the keylogger, including on the computer of her bride, Irina Gumenyuk. Soon, Irina changed her last name on Vovnenko on social networks - and so Brian Krebs came up with the identity of the hacker who terrorized him. He turned out to be a 28-year-old Sergei Vovnenko, who lived with his wife and young son in the Italian city of Naples.
Brian Krebs handed over all the collected information about the attacker to law enforcement agencies, and soon Italian special forces visited the apartment of the Ukrainian family.
For about 15 months, Mucha waited for extradition in the prison of Poggioreale Jail, which is called the
worst in Italy . There he repented and even sent Brian greeting cards for the New Year.
At the end of the Koontsov, Vovnenko was still extradited to the United States, and on February 16, 2017, a New Jersey judge sentenced him to 41 months in prison (about the same amount he had already served), three years under observation and damages of $ 83,368.
The punishment for Vovnenko is not related to hooligan actions against a journalist, but is related to his other crimes of carders. By American standards, it can be called quite soft. Moreover, the carder, apparently, was released right in the courtroom. Perhaps this story will teach Sergei more responsible attitude to his life - and more he will not allow such mistakes.
But in general, all the rest should be borne in mind that jokes with Brian Krebs are bad.