A Macedonian accused of selling over 181,000 stolen credit card details on an underground website he operated has been extradited to the United States, according to a complaint unsealed in a Brooklyn federal court on Friday.
Djevair Ametovski, aka ‘codeshop,’ ‘sindrom’ and ‘sindromx,’ is accused of crimes linked to a site he created for the sale of card data and other personal information.
The charges include aggravated identity theft, access device fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy.
He was the beneficiary of data stolen from individuals, financial institutions and other businesses via phishing attacks, according to a Department of Justice release.
Ametovski’s site, Codeshop.su, was apparently sophisticated enough to allow customers to search for specific data via bank identification number, financial institution, country, state, and card brand.
The scammers then used that stolen data typically either to make fraudulent online transactions or to produce cloned cards to withdraw money at ATMs.
To keep his activities a secret, the Macedonian apparently used a network of online money exchangers and digital currencies both to pay the hackers for their stolen data and to receive payment from fraudsters using the site.
Ametovski’s activities resulted in the loss of millions of dollars to thousands of victims around the world, according to the filing.
He was arrested in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 22 January 2014.
“Cyber-criminals who create and operate online criminal marketplaces in which innocent victims’ financial and personal information are bought and sold erode consumer trust in modern-day payment systems and cause millions of dollars in losses to financial institutions and unsuspecting individuals,” said US attorney Robert Capers, in a statement.
“Today marks a major step in bringing the alleged operator of one such criminal marketplace to justice, and should serve as a warning to others who seek to profit from perpetuating these fraudulent schemes.”
Trend Micro VP of cybersecurity strategy and former Secret Service CISO, Ed Cabrera, claimed the arrest and extradition was a “very promising development.”
“Extradition and arraignment are some of the first steps in the process that have proven to be difficult historically. This case is an important step to unravel these illicit forums in hopes of establishing an effective deterrent against their ongoing establishment,” he added.
“We salute the US Secret Service and Justice Department in this accomplishment and hope to see similar take downs in the future.”