San Francisco, March 21 A court in Nevada has sentenced Russian citizen Sergey Medvedev to 10 years in jail for being a part of a transnational cybercrime enterprise engaged in mass acquisition and sale of fraud-related goods and services, including stolen identities, compromised credit card data, computer malware, and other contraband.
Medvedev was sentenced for his role in a criminal group known as Infraud Organization which victimised millions of people in all 50 states of the US and caused more than $568 million in financial losses, the US Department of Justice said in a statement on Friday.
Along with Medvedev, the US court sentenced Marko Leopard, 31, of North Macedonia, to five years in jail as part of the Infraud case.
"Sergey Medvedev, aka 'Stells', 'segmed', and 'serjbear', 33, of Russia, pleaded guilty in the District of Nevada to one count of racketeering conspiracy in June 2020 and was sentenced today to 10 years in prison," the US Department of Justice said.
According to court documents, Medvedev was a co-founder of Infraud along with Syvatoslav Bondarenko of Ukraine.
From November 2010 until Infraud was taken down by law enforcement in February 2018, Medvedev was an active participant in the Infraud online forum, operating an "escrow" service to facilitate illegal transactions among Infraud members.
For several years, Medvedev served as Infraud's administrator, handling day-to-day management, deciding membership, and meting out discipline to those who violated the enterprise's rules, the US Department of Justice said.
Infraud was a criminal enterprise that existed to enrich its members and associates through a myriad of criminal acts of identity theft and financial fraud.
Infraud facilitated the sale of contraband by its members, including counterfeit documents, stolen bank account and credit account information, and stolen personal identifying information.
The enterprise, which boasted over 10,000 members at its peak and operated for more than seven years under the slogan "In Fraud We Trust," is among the largest ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.
Infraud was responsible for the sale and/or purchase of over four million compromised credit and debit card numbers, the US Department of Justice said.
The actual loss associated with Infraud was in excess of $568 million, it added.
( With inputs from IANS )
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