Thirty-eight individuals with ties to international organized crime have been charged in two separate indictments involving computer and credit card fraud schemes, The Deputy Attorney General made the announcement on Monday with the Romanian Prosecutor General. The announcement comes less than one month after U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced the Department’s new Law Enforcement Strategy to Combat International Organized Crime.
US DOJ takes aim at Phishing, targets 38 at home and abroad in investigation. (IMG:J.Anderson)
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged 33 individuals in a 65-count indictment unsealed Monday, for their alleged participation in an international racketeering scheme that used the Internet to defraud thousands of individual victims and hundreds of financial institutions. The individuals named in the indictment operated from locations in the United States and abroad including Canada, Pakistan, Portugal and Romania, and include both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals.
U.S. law enforcement authorities executed nine arrest warrants in the Los Angeles area and Romanian law enforcement authorities are executing search warrants in Romania on Monday in connection with the racketeering indictment.
“International organized crime poses a serious threat not only to the United States and Romania, but to all nations,” said Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip. “Criminals who exploit the power and convenience of the Internet do not recognize national borders; therefore our efforts to prevent their attacks cannot end at our borders either. Through cooperation with our international partners, we can disrupt and dismantle these enterprises, just as we have done today with these indictments and arrests.”
The Los Angeles indictment alleges a conspiracy to violate the RICO Act; conspiracy in connection with access devices; production, use and trafficking in counterfeit access devices; bank fraud; aggravated identity theft; unauthorized access to a protected computer; possession of device making equipment; and a forfeiture allegation. The RICO conspiracy charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
Seven individuals were charged in a District of Connecticut indictment for their roles in an Internet Phishing scheme, including two who were also charged in the Los Angeles case.
The investigation in the District of Connecticut resulted from a citizen’s complaint concerning a fraudulent e-mail message made to appear as if it originated from Connecticut-based People’s Bank. In fact, the e-mail message directed victims to a computer in Minnesota that had been compromised, and used to host a counterfeit People’s Bank Internet site. During the course of the investigation, it was determined that the individuals had engaged in similar Phishing schemes against many other financial institutions and companies, including Citibank, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Comerica Bank, Wells Fargo & Co., eBay and PayPal.
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