A federal jury convicted the son of a Russian lawmaker Thursday of hacking into US businesses to steal credit card information and orchestrating an worldwide online theft scheme that netted him millions of dollars.
Advertisement
Roman Seleznev, also known as “Track2”, was found guilty by a federal jury in Seattle on 38 of 40 counts including wire fraud and intentional damage to a protected computer following an eight day trial, prosecutors said.
Seleznev is due to be sentenced in December.
He is the 32 year old son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the State Duma which is the lower house of Russia’s parliament.
Russian authorities sharply criticised the arrest at the time, describing it as a “kidnapping”.
Seleznev was then transferred to Guam before ending up in Seattle to stand trial.
Prosecuters are calling this one of the most prolific credit card trafficking schemes ever.
Seleznev was indicted in 2011, but a month later, he suffered a brain injury in a terrorist bombing in a cafe in Morocco. He was in a coma for two weeks and underwent a series of operations, according to one of his previous lawyers.
The U.S. government says that Valery likely took a more active role in securing his son’s release than filing formal complaints, and claims that it has the two on tape discussing plans to tamper with witnesses and even toying with the idea of orchestrating an escape from the Seattle-area federal detention center.
Authorities found 1.7 million CC numbers on his computer when he was arrested, but prosecutors said he stole as many as 2.9 million between 2009 and 2013.
The investigation started in 2010 when a deli in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was hacked.
A Russian man accused of orchestrating an global online theft scheme has been found guilty of hacking into USA businesses to steal credit card information. They then connected those servers to Seleznev through his online nicknames and other sites he frequented.
Advertisement
Prosecutors said a laptop Seleznev had with him at the time of his arrest contained details for 1.7 million credit cards. He “left his digital fingerprints all over the crime scene”, prosecutor Norman Barbosa said during closing arguments this week, according to the Associated Press.
