JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Dow Jones & Co. were among the targets of the biggest theft of customer data from USA financial institutions in history, prosecutors said in announcing charges against four men accused of running online schemes including stock manipulation and casino gambling that generated hundreds of millions of dollars.
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The suspects were previously implicated in a widespread fraud case in connection with the 2014 data breach at JPMorgan Chase that resulted in the theft of data belonging to 83 million household and small-business accounts.
It also said it appreciates its “strong partnership” with law enforcement, and is cooperating with its efforts to fight cybercrime.
“Today we have exposed a cybercriminal enterprise that for years successfully and secretly hacked into the networks of a dozen companies, allegedly stealing personal information of over 100 million people”, Bharara said.
The indictment charges Gery Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron and an unidentified hacker with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, two counts of computer fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft.
US Attorney Preet Bharara made the announcement at a press conference in Manhattan, on November 10.
Another defendant, Anthony Murgio, of Florida, was indicted over an illegal bitcoin exchange operated as part of the scam. The hackers stole the personal information of over 100 million customers across the companies. All three men were charged in July with related crimes, though the hacking crimes were not specified then.
They added that the group laundered the proceeds through at least 75 shell companies and bank and brokerage accounts worldwide. Court documents obtained by CoinDesk detail seven charges against Murgio, who was arrested in July alongside co-operator Yuri Lebedev and charged with the unlawful operation of a money transmission business as well as money laundering. The indictment claims that they used the Heartbleed vulnerability to gain access to a few of the servers they hacked.
On Tuesday, Shalon and Orenstein were detained in Israel while Aaron remains at large, possibly in eastern Europe.
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In the pump and dump scheme, Shalon, Aaron and Orenstein allegedly “manipulated trading” in a particularly publicly traded stock. The indictments include a few 30 criminal charges carrying penalties of between five and 20 years each.
