The son of a Russian lawmaker was convicted yesterday on United States charges that he engaged in a scheme to hack into United States businesses in order to steal and sell credit card numbers, costing financial institutions more than US$169 million (RM678.88 million). Seleznev will be sentenced in December.
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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.
The conviction of Seleznev, of Vladivostok, followed a 10-year-long investigation by the US Secret Service, the agency said. 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 us over cybercrime.
However, one of his lawyers, John Henry Browne, said he plans to appeal and challenge what he says was an illegal arrest in the Maldives and a subsequent ruling that allowed prosecutors to allegedly introduce evidence from the seized “corrupted laptop”. Konstantin Dolgov of the Russian Foreign Ministry commented, “We, of course, will continue providing for him the consulate-legal assistance, will support work of lawyers”.
Seleznev “left his digital fingerprints all over the crime scene”, Assistant U.S. Attorney Norman Barbosa said during closing arguments Wednesday.
The charges all relate to a series of malware attacks against point-of-sale systems – the computer networks that process credit card payments for retail businesses. The agents flew him by private jet to Guam and then to Seattle, where he has been in custody.
In total, prosecutors said Seleznev pilfered $170 million through his worldwide hacking operation.
Prosecutors said a laptop Seleznev had with him at the time of his arrest contained details for 1.7 million credit cards. “There was definitely politics involved in this”. Seleznev’s father is a member of the Russian Federal Assembly, the nation’s parliament, and close to President Vladimir Putin.
The U.S. Secret Service began tracking Seleznev in 2005.
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Seleznev has also been charged in separate cases in Neveda and Georgia involving racketeering and bank fraud.
