Crimes and penalties of the past month

In the city of Port Harcourt, Interpol and law enforcement agencies in Nigeria arrested a man and his accomplice, who are suspected of Internet fraud. The amount received as a result of such illegal actions amounted to $ 60 million. The attacker is a 40-year-old Nigerian citizen, known by the nickname Mike. He is suspected of organizing and managing an international criminal network. According to preliminary information, the group has more than 40 people. The case is loud, as hundreds of people suffered as a result of the group’s actions, one of the victims lost more than $ 15 million due to fraudulent schemes.

A criminal organization cracked corporate email accounts of small and medium-sized companies in different parts of the world with the help of malware (Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, and the USA). The work done by criminals used two types of fraudulent schemes. One of them: the attackers hacked into the account of one of the suppliers of the company and on his behalf sent letters with the details of the bank account to which it was necessary to transfer money (payment).

And in China, the founder of a large community of ethical hackers in China was arrested. But, so far there are no official data on the reasons for the detention.
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Fang Xiaodun is the creator of the Wooyun community, which has more than 5,000 members. Wooyun is a non-profit organization that publishes vulnerability data only if companies refuse to recognize them. He and 10 other members of the organization were detained by the police, while no specific charges were made.



According to community members, everything happened at lightning speed, without prior notification, of any administrative procedures. On July 8-9, Fang Xiaodong took part in the convention of white hats and nothing foreshadowed "trouble." July 18 is the date of his last official message on WeChat account. Access to the account of Fan Xiaodong is currently closed by community members for security purposes.

As an assumption: Xiaodong was looking for vulnerabilities in government networks without the permission of the authorities, which was the reason for the arrest. According to the lawyer of the Internet community of China, community members may face legal issues that are not related to criminal liability. But, as it will be in reality, time will tell.

On July 22, 2016, the District Court of Florida (United States) sentenced the citizen of Romania Sorin Kondrake to 70 months of imprisonment and three years of restriction of freedom. Recall that Kondrake is accused of fraudulent campaigns using ATM skimming. The convict pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deceive a financial institution. He was found equipment for the manufacture of special tools for the implementation of illegal actions. The attackers installed skimmers on ATMs owned by SunTrust Bank in Florida, Maryland, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina. The mechanism in the skimmers recorded data about the cards, and the pinhole camera placed in them intercepted PIN codes.



For 35 times of using this device, a criminal organization with the help of fake cards managed to withdraw $ 905.901. Prior to this incident, 10 years ago, a 36-year-old citizen of Romania was already accused of such frauds. In 2006, he was imprisoned for 4 years by law enforcement in Ireland. Violators of the law were caught during the skimming installation process at the ATM.

An FBI official Kun Shan Chun was arrested in New York. He is accused of espionage, the collection of classified information by the FBI for businessmen and government officials of the PRC. When he was suspected of spying, a secret agent was involved in his exposure.



According to ABC News, the detainee pleaded guilty to collecting secret information from the FBI and transferring data to the Chinese side. Kun Shan Chun is a foreign government agent who has been an FBI specialist in electronic equipment since 1997. It was proved that the defendant and his family members had collaborated since 2006 with a representative of the PRC government and businessmen, a company producing printers Kolion (China). For such illegal activities, he faces 10 years in prison.

And in Moscow on July 26, law enforcement agencies detained two suspicious men at an ATM in the additional office of Moscow Bank PJSC Sberbank of Russia. With the help of “jokes bank” tickets, suspects kidnapped 325 thousand rubles from an ATM.



They replenished the balance of the card with "jokes of the bank" tickets, after which they tried to withdraw money from other ATMs of the same bank. On that day, the attackers managed to deposit funds from the “fun bank” tickets in the amount of 3 million 175 thousand rubles for three cards. During the arrest, the fraudsters had 352 thousand rubles, 572 bank notes "jokes" and 5 bank cards. It was a criminal case.



Here is a comment from the Sberbank press service:

We confirm the fact of the arrest of counterfeiters, who were able to deposit fake bills into one of the Sberbank devices. The situation became possible due to a technical failure. Necessary measures taken.