US Jails Money Mule Kingpin

A Ukrainian man will devote the following 7 years in jail in the United States for encouraging Jap European computer system hackers to acquire and launder millions of dollars in stolen resources. 

Odessa resident Aleksandr Musienko partnered with the hackers to steal about $3m from on the web lender accounts and corporations in the United States, then launder the stolen revenue overseas. 

Data hacked and stolen by the 38-12 months-old’s companions in the scheme permitted them to impersonate US victims in interactions with the victims’ banks.

“By deceiving the victims’ banking companies into believing that withdrawals from the victims’ accounts had been requested by the victims, Musienko and other folks were being equipped to steal big amounts of income from the victims’ accounts,” said the Department of Justice.

Musienko’s purpose in the plan included recruiting, supervising, and directing a network of men and women with American company and unique financial institution accounts who would agree to obtain the stolen money and transmit them abroad in trade for a charge. 

Making use of an alias, Musienko recruited these so-known as dollars mules by marketing on task web-sites that he was in search of a economical assistant. 

People who answered his advertisement have been falsely instructed that they ended up delivering a provider to a legit business by assisting its consumers to make global cash transfers. 

In September 2011, the hackers doing the job with Musienko broke into the on the web accounts of a company centered in North Carolina and transferred a overall of $296,278 to two financial institution accounts controlled by the cash mules. 

Musienko instructed his mules to wire the money to a number of lender accounts in Europe. On the other hand, the company’s lender detected the fraud and deducted $197,526.36 in stolen resources from a single of the mules prior to it could be wired abroad.

In the Western District of North Carolina in 2016, sealed prices have been submitted from Musienko. He was arrested two yrs later in South Korea and extradited to the United States in 2019. 

A look for of Musienko’s notebook done by the FBI in 2019 identified documents that contains about 120,000 payment card numbers and linked pinpointing data for people today other than Musienko.  

On February 11, Musienko was sentenced to 87 months in jail and purchased to pay back $98,751.64 in restitution.

Some areas of this post are sourced from:
www.infosecurity-magazine.com