Russian Ministry of International Affairs discovered the activity of the criminal group, which stole money from citizens’ accounts, gaining illegal access to a variety of payment systems and services, including WebMoney, Yandex.Money, Yota, Qiwi and programmes “Client-Bank”.
Police started investigation of the fraudulent activity in 2011. It is known that the criminal group consisted of 10 people. The founder of the group was a 29-year old young man, who was in the federal wanted list due to committing several crimes in Kostroma region of Russia.
The founder of the group had two assistants, who carried out digital crimes in two different regions of Russian Federation.
Spreading the malware, hackers gained access to personal computers of organizations and citizens of Russia, who worked with the “Client-Bank” services. Criminals targeted computers which were used while carrying out transactions on customer accounts.
Criminals had a hidden remote access to banks’ computers and that helped them to make unauthorized transactions from user’s accounts. Stolen money was cashed in ATMs in Moscow and Yaroslavl.
During investigation police conducted several raids at places of criminals’ residence and seized computer hardware, data carriers, mobile phones, 1000 SIM-cards, bank card and some documents, confirming the illegal activities of the criminals.
The criminals were filed with criminal charges for fraud, illegal access to digital information and creation, usage and spreading of malware.
