Described equally "international estimator hackers" past times the US of America Department of Justice, Teodor Laurentiu Costea, 41, too Robert Codrut Dumitrescu, 40, allegedly rob Americans of to a greater extent than than $18 1 K m inwards an elaborate phishing scheme.
Costea too Dumitrescu were named inwards the 31-count federal grand jury indictment on August sixteen final twelvemonth too were accused final calendar week inwards the Northern District of Georgia next their extradition.
Another co-defendant, Cosmin Draghici, 28, remains inwards custody inwards Romania awaiting his extradition to the United States.
"These extraditions post a potent alert to cybercriminals too fraudsters worldwide, that we, along amongst our law-enforcement partners, volition piece of work tirelessly to convey you lot to justice," said U. S. Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak.According to the indictment, betwixt Oct 2011 too Feb 2014, Costea too Dumitrescu installed interactive phonation reply software on vulnerable PCs located inwards the U.S. to initiate thousands of automated telephone calls too text messages.
Those messages too telephone calls purported to hold out from a fiscal establishment too directed victims to telephone outcry upwards a release due to an effect amongst their respective fiscal accounts.
When victims called that number, they were prompted past times the IVR software to paw over their banking concern work organisation human relationship numbers, PINs, too total or partial Social Security Numbers (SSNs), which were too therefore allegedly sold or used past times Costea too Dumitrescu amongst the assistance of Draghici.
The U.S. Department of Justice described this elaborated voice- too SMS-phishing tactics equally "vishing" too "smishing" respectively.
At the fourth dimension of Costea's arrest, he lonely possessed 36,051 fiscal work organisation human relationship numbers fraudulently obtained past times innocent people, the courtroom documents alleged.
U.S. officials gauge the losses from the vishing too smishing system total to to a greater extent than than $18 million.
The US of America authorities has of late extradited several cyber criminals inwards connectedness amongst dissimilar cyber crimes. Earlier this year, Espana deported Russian hacker Peter Yuryevich Levashov to America for his alleged piece of work inwards a massive Kelihos botnet.
In March, Russian hacker Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin was extradited to the US of America from the Czechia for his ties to information breaches at LinkedIn, Dropbox, too now-defunct social-networking theater Formspring.
FBI Special Agent inwards Charge David LeValley hopes the extraditions volition serve equally a message to cybercriminals across the world, proverb "Our message to the victims of cyber fraud is that the FBI won’t allow geographic boundaries halt us from pursuing too prosecuting the persons who crusade them tremendous fiscal pain."
