U.S. agents arrested two dozen people in 13 countries as part of a global undercover operation targeting credit-card hacking that may have affected hundreds of thousands of customers.
The scheme may have also reached dozens of companies and educational institutions, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. Two suspects were caught through an undercover website set up by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, he said.
“The allegations unsealed today chronicle a breathtaking spectrum of cyber schemes and scams,” Bharara said. “Individuals sold credit cards by the thousands and took the private information of untold numbers of people.”
The FBI arrested two people in New York. Joshua Hicks and Mir Islam are scheduled to appear later today in federal court in Manhattan, according to court records.
The FBI established the website “as an online meeting place where the FBI could locate cybercriminals, investigate and identify them and disrupt their activities,” prosecutors said in a criminal complaint unsealed today.
“The FBI estimates that it helped financial institutions prevent many millions of dollars in losses from credit card fraud and other activity,” according to the complaint.
Hicks, who used the online name OxideDox, passed 15 stolen credit card numbers to an undercover agent in exchange for a camera and $250, according to the complaint.
Undercover Website
The website set up by the FBI allowed users to discuss topics relating to “carding,” or stealing credit and debit card data to get money, services and merchandise, according to the complaint.
The FBI monitored discussions and recorded the Internet addresses of the users’ computers, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, Hicks on Feb. 22 agreed to trade stolen data from the credit cards for the digital single- lens reflex camera. A FBI agent sent the money electronically to a website user who acted as an escrow agent, according to the complaint.
OxideDox
The FBI agent then agreed to meet OxideDox in lower Manhattan on Feb. 28 and provide the camera, according to the complaint.
Later, the agent chatted online with OxideDox, asking him if he liked the camera, according to the complaint.
“Hey, a free camera is a free camera,” OxideDox replied, according to the complaint.
The matter was reported earlier by the Associated Press.
The case is U.S. v. Hicks, 12-mg-1639, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in New York at pathurtado@bloomberg.net; Bob Van Voris in New York at pathurtado@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
More News:
6/26/2012
U.S. Arrests Two Dozen in Undercover Credit Card Operation
via bloomberg.com
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