Seleznev sold the credit card information on various “carding” websites.
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Roman Seleznev could face up to 40 years in prison for stealing millions of credit card numbers that he sold on underground internet forums for millions of dollars.
Seleznev, 32, who is the son of Russian parliament member Valery Seleznev, was charged with 38 counts of bank fraud, hacking into secured computer networks, possession of illegal hacking devices as well as aggravated identity theft.
A Department of Justice press release about the conviction points out that small business owners were among the victimized, including “restaurants in Western Washington, including the Broadway Grill in Seattle, which was forced into bankruptcy following the cyber assault”. The defense also said there was a lack of definitive physical proof tying Seleznev to the hacking.
Testimony at his trial revealed that Seleznev’s scheme defrauded US$169 million from 3,700 financial institutions, the U.S. Secret Service said in a statement. They then connected those servers to Seleznev through his online nicknames and other sites he frequented. The arrest of Seleznev, the son of a member of Russia’s Duma, set off global protest as his home nation called his seizure a kidnapping part of a string of disputes with the USA over cybercrime.
Roman Seleznev, 32, who used the hacker handle Track2, was convicted of 38 counts by a Seattle jury on Thursday after an eight day trial and will be sentenced December 2, the Justice Department said in a release.
According to prosecutors, Roman Seleznev was “one of the most prolific credit card traffickers in history”, using malware-infected computers to steal payment information from American businesses for more than a decade before he was arrested while on holiday in the Maldives in 2014.
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. He is also facing charges related to the hacks in Nevada and Georgia.
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The arrest of Seleznev – the son of ultranationalist parliament member Valery Seleznev – sparked an worldwide dispute between United States authorities and Russian officials, who characterised the extradition as a “kidnapping”.
