After infiltrating bank accounts through computer hacking, authorities said, the defendants and other conspirators were able to divert customers’ money to bank accounts and pre-paid debit cards the defendants controlled.
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Above is photo of Richard Gundersen, who is being held at Essex County jail. A federal grand jury has indicted three men, including Gundersen, of Brooklyn, for allegedly attempting to steal more than $15 million from American customers using an international hacking scheme aimed at banks and other institutions, authorities said. (Essex County jail)
Oleksiy Sharapka, 33, and Leonid Yanovitsky, 39, both of the Ukraine, and Richard Gundersen, 47, of Brooklyn, have been charged in the indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit access device fraud and identity theft, and aggravated identity theft, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.
The global financial institutions and businesses the defendants allegedly hacked while working with other conspirators included Aon Hewitt, Automatic Data Processing, Citibank, E-Trade, Electronic Payments, Fundtech Holdings, iPayment; JP Morgan Chase Bank, Nordstrom Bank, PayPal, TD Ameritrade, the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Finance and Accounting Service, TIAA-CREF, USAA, and Veracity Payment Solutions, authorities said.
A defense lawyer for Gunderson could not be reached for comment. Sharapka and Yanovitsky remain at large, authorities said.
Authorities said Sharapka ran the hacking scheme with the help of Yanovitsky. Gunderson then worked to help move the stolen money, they said.
After infiltrating bank accounts through computer hacking, authorities said, the defendants and other conspirators were able to divert customers’ money to bank accounts and pre-paid debit cards the defendants controlled. The defendants and conspirators then put into effect a sophisticated “cash out” operation, authorities said, employing groups of people known as “cashers” who withdrew the money in various ways, including by making both ATM withdraws and fraudulent purchases in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Georgia and elsewhere.
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Fishman said in an interview today that some of the alleged “victim business,” such as Fundtech Holdings and Automatic Data Processing, are based in New Jersey.
As part of their scheme, the defendants and conspirators also stole the identities of some people in the U.S., authorities said. Then they allegedly used that information to facilitate the cash-out operation, including by transferring money to cards that bore the names of the stolen identities. The defendants and conspirators also used some of the identities to file fraudulent tax returns with the IRS seeking refunds, authorities added.
The defendants and conspirators laundered the money they got, authorities added, often by using international wire transfer services to get money to the leaders of the conspiracy who were overseas.
If convicted, Sharapka, Yanovitsky and Gundersen each face a maximum potential punishment of 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud count, five years in prison on the conspiracy to commit access device fraud and identity theft count, and a consecutive term of two years in prison on the aggravated identity theft counts, authorities said.
The bust of the scheme was first announced in June, as charges were brought in a federal complaint against Sharapka, Yanovitsky, Gundersen and five others. One of the defendants has had the charges against him dismissed, authorities said today, and another defendant, Andrey Yarmolitskiy, 41, of Atlanta, pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
The other three alleged conspirators' cases are pending, authorities said. They are Oleg Pidtergerya, 49, of Brooklyn; Robert Dubuc, 40, of Malden, Mass.; and Lamar Taylor, 37, of Salem, Mass.