UNITED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT DISMANTLE ONLINE ORGANIZED CRIME RING OPERATING OUT

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edky/pr/united-states-and-international-law-enforcement-dismantle-online-organized-crime-ring

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Eastern District of Kentucky

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 7, 2019

UNITED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT DISMANTLE ONLINE ORGANIZED CRIME RING OPERATING OUT OF ROMANIA THAT VICTIMIZED THOUSANDS OF U.S. RESIDENTS
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WASHINGTON – According to court documents unsealed today, 20 people, including 16 foreign nationals, have been charged for their roles in an international organized crime group that defrauded American victims through online auction fraud causing millions of dollars in losses.
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On July 5, 2018, a federal grand jury in Lexington, Kentucky returned a 24-count indictment charging 15 foreign nationals with RICO conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and aggravated identity theft. Those charged include Andrei-Cătălin Stoica, 28, of Romania; Victor-Aurel Grama, 29, of Romania; Liviu-Sorin Nedelcu, 33, of Romania; Ionuţ Ciobanu, 28, of Romania; Marius-Dorin Cernat, 35, of Romania; Alexandru Ion, 30, of Romania; Ştefan-Alexandru Păiuşi, 33, of Romania; Eugen-Alin Badea, 34, of Romania; Cristişor Olteanu, 31, of Romania; Adrian Mitan, 34, of Romania; Bogdan-Ştefan Popescu, 29, of Romania; Florin Arvat, 24, of Romania; Alin-Ionuţ Dobrică, 26, of Romania; Vlad-Călin Nistor, 31, of Romania, and Rossen Iossifov, 51, of Bulgaria. On Feb. 6, a federal grand jury in Lexington returned an 11-count indictment charging an additional foreign national and four Americans for their roles in the criminal enterprise. Those charged include Beniamin-Filip Ologeanu, 29, of Alexandria, Romania; Austin Edward Nedved, 27, of Northborough, Massachusetts; Dimitrious Antoine Brown, 37, of Macon, Georgia and Rashawd Lamar Tulloch, 30, of Newnan, Georgia. Andrew Gilbert Ybarra II, 25, of Patterson, California, was also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. In all, 15 Romanian nationals and one Bulgarian national were charged in these two indictments. Of these, 12 have been extradited to the United States and are awaiting trials, which are currently set for June 18, 2019 and Aug. 7, 2019.

The indictment alleges that these defendants participated in a criminal conspiracy primarily located in Alexandria, Romania that engaged in a large-scale scheme of online auction fraud. Specifically, Romania-based members of the conspiracy and their associates posted false advertisements to popular online auction and sales websites—such as Craigslist and eBay—for high-cost goods (typically vehicles) that did not actually exist. According to the indictment, these members would convince American victims to send money for the advertised goods by crafting persuasive narratives, for example, by impersonating a military member who needed to sell the advertised item before deployment. The members of the conspiracy are alleged to have created fictitious online accounts to post these advertisements and communicate with victims, often using the stolen identities of Americans to do so. They are alleged to have delivered invoices to the victims bearing trademarks of reputable companies in order to make the transactions appear legitimate. Once victims were convinced to send payment, the indictment alleges that the conspiracy engaged in a complicated money laundering scheme wherein domestic associates would accept victim funds, convert these funds to cryptocurrency, and transfer proceeds in the form of cryptocurrency to foreign-based associates. The indictment alleges that these foreign-based money launderers include Vlad-Călin Nistor, who owns Coinflux Services SRL, and Rossen Iossifov, who owns R G Coins. According to the indictment, Nistor and Iossifov exchanged cryptocurrency into local fiat currency on behalf of the Romania-based members of the conspiracy, knowing that they were exchanging bitcoin that represented the proceeds of fraud.

Some of the fraud schemes alleged in the indictments include:
•Nedelcu persuaded victims to send money for the advertised goods by creating fictitious but legitimate sounding entities through which he purported to sell vehicles. For example, he used email address, [e-mail], belonging to Aol Autos, to communicate with victims by email with subject lines like, “America Online Autos Financial Department [Order # 099106592090].” The email would contain messages appearing to be legitimate invoices for payment for the advertised item purported to be sold.

•Ciobanu and his coconspirators used the email address [e-mail] to communicate with victims about the sale of vehicles, signing the emails as “Sgt. Judith Lane,” and created a Facebook profile for Judith Lane, who was depicted as a member of the Air Force. Ciobanu, acting as “Judith Lane,” also posted two Facebook advertisements for the sale of automobiles.

•Cernat and his coconspirators sent victims invoices that appeared to be from eBay Motors and provided an eBay Motors Support Department phone number and email address of [e-mail]. These invoices provided instructions for payment and included reassuring language for secure transactions, such as, “Through OneVanilla Prepaid Visa services we can guarantee you 100 percent protection and insurance in this transaction. eBay Payments will secure the payment until the buyer receives, inspects, and accepts the item. Or, if it will be the case, eBay will refund the payment to the buyer.”

•Păiuşi also convinced victims to send money for the advertised goods by sending them invoices for payment that appeared legitimate. … [One such] invoice appeared to be sent from “eBayTM Buyer Protection,” provided the victim with an email address for questions, described the seller as a “certified eBayTM third-party seller,” and explained that the buyer will be refunded if he or she refuses the merchandise.

•The coconspirators then communicated with the victims via email, often signing their emails by posing as a member of the military, like “Sgt. Logan Burdick.” Other emails purported to be from the online auction company, like eBay. The emails often communicated convincing information about the item being sold and the reason payment was required before shipping or viewing the item.

Adrian Mitan, who was charged in the July 5, 2018 indictment, was also charged in a separate indictment unsealed today with money laundering offenses arising from a credit card phishing and brute-force attack scheme, likewise designed to steal money from Americans. The indictment explains that phishing is an attempt to acquire personal information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity through electronic communications, and brute force is a cryptological trial-and-error methodology used to obtain information such as personal identification numbers for credit cards. Mitan allegedly phished for credit/debit card information of U.S. customers, hacked into the electronic systems of American businesses, and then conducted a brute force attack on their point-of-sale systems for the purpose of stealing the remaining credit/debit card information. According to the indictment, Mitan then directed American money launderers to create “dummy” credit/debit cards with the stolen information, which were used to extract money from the customers’ accounts. These fraudulent proceeds were then returned to Mitan in the form of bitcoin.
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Individuals believing they may be victims of the advanced fee and online auction fraud or brute-force attack schemes described herein are encouraged to visit the following website to obtain more information: https://justice.gov/usao-edky/information-victims-large-cases. Tips to avoid becoming a victim of online auction fraud can be found here on the U.S. Secret Service’s website.
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[Hotler]

1. God damn! That should almost be public notice on.....

how to behave online when you shop. and just one scam of many, many. out there.