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US, NY Bust 92 Mules In 'ZeuS Trojan' Crime Ring

Posted by kdawson on from the beasts-of-burden dept.

Following on the 19 ZeuS botnet arrests in the UK, adeelarshad82 and other readers sent word that US and New York officials have unsealed more than 90 indictments of money mules and others accused of helping siphon more than $3M from 5 banks and dozens of individuals, and sending it overseas. The Manhattan US Attorney announced charges against 37 individuals and New York charged 55. Most of those indicted are foreign students who came to the US on exchange visitor visas. Most are from Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, or Belarus. Here is the FBI's lengthy press release. A security blogger has put up Facebook party photos of some of the indicted individuals who are still at large.

20 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Shit where do I sign up by Rivalz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    3 million / 90 = 33k per mule.... wait thats not enough for me to fly across 10 time zones to get arrested a year later.
    Seriously crime should pay better even in a recession.

    1. Re:Shit where do I sign up by Fluffeh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Even assuming most of these folks won't get anywhere near the full value of their withdrawl, for most of them it was likely the only way that they could get enough money to get overseas, possibly actually get some study done and maybe after their work was done, have a chance to start life in their shitty little eastern european countries.

      I have a good few friends in eastern europe. Trust me when I say that life is crap and opportunities are few and far between. While I certainly don't support or encourage crime like this, I can empathize with them.

      --
      Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
    2. Re:Shit where do I sign up by mirix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Life is crap is rather relative. Sure it's not Sweden, but it isn't Burma either.

      Most east europeans I know have a fairly decent standard of living. There's room for improvement for sure, but it's not *that* bleak.

      Then again, I have an uncle who is a mech eng, and makes something like I'd make at mcdonalds here... but everything domestic there is considerably cheaper, so they aren't starving. The only real problem is getting western goods, or commodities with global prices (fuel is still expensive..) - This works in most parts of east europe I think. Moscow is a batshit insane corner case though, with ridiculous prices...

      Somehow they seem to be happier than the average american/canadian IME, though. More of a work enough to survive thing, as opposed to the 60h a week live to work thing we have happening here.

      And there's always a selection bias too, I guess. My Russian friends that want to come to the west badly seem to badmouth the motherland a lot more than friends that have no intention of leaving. I think part of it is a grass is greener thing.

      --
      Sent from my PDP-11
    3. Re:Shit where do I sign up by mirix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, I suppose that could be true. I'm not amazingly familiar with russian prices (never been there.. yet!) but I've found cost of food and similar staples to be much cheaper in Serbia than in my home (canada), and presume a fair bit of that carries over.

      You're right, cars are definitely more expensive. I'm not sure if they still have tariffs on imported vehicles (which are based off an external prices, still..)
      Of course.. domestic vehicles are rather cheap, if you want one ;)
      Last time in serbia, a yugo was $6k or so tax paid, and around $9k for a lada niva.

      But I think the bare necessities (food, shelter) and definitely sin things (liquor, cigs) are /far/ cheaper. I can get a carton of cigs in serbia for less than a pack costs in Canada ;-)
      Luxuries, especially western made ones, are definitely not affordable though. But.. caviar is cheaper.. go figure.

      One thing I really like about east europe that all but disappeared in the west is.. one man operation stores.. and... repairing things! Imagine that.. fixing electronics, shoes, whatever... which becomes economical with lower wages, I suppose.

      --
      Sent from my PDP-11
  2. Money Mule Groups by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    After posting my email address publicly on careerbuilder.com, I started getting lots of emails advertising money mule positions. Here's one of their websites, in case you wanted to know what these groups are like.

    1. Re:Money Mule Groups by vlueboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      After posting my email address publicly on careerbuilder.com, I started getting lots of emails advertising money mule positions.

      I hear you. It is a annoying that so many +75k job offers [fake salary even if the job were real] completely unrelated to my career follow two principles:

      * Taking advantage of our assumption [we are all naive at some point] that all "employers" and "jobs" there are authenticated, which is the whole reason we all fork over a phone, email address and tons of details that facebook would LOVE to data mine

      * They're making enough scam-cash to profit despite $400-$600/month fees that job boards charge employers for the most basic rights to access our resumes.

      The number of work-from-home emails plummeted when I
      1) started aggressively filtering domains, subject lines and even blocking TO: lines lacking my email address (how does that even work?!)
      2) most importantly, realized that an e-mail address allows spammers and lazy/obnoxious headhunters to add me to lists [the latter ignoring my OBJECTIVE line]

      US headhunters cold-emails for BCC'ing dozens of candidates about bullet points completely absent from my resume. When I withhold that email, their reduced anonymity of being on a phone call has meant that they mention company name, callback number, and almost ALWAYS actually read my resume before making stupid mistakes that the other "toss-garbage-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" headhunters make constantly. Even on a call, it's obvious that they too say "must have 3 years of active directory experience" or a CCNA, which is not something you just forget to put on your resume --they then realize they called the wrong person and wasted both of our time.

      Once on the phone though, legit reps request your email, so you can't go wrong with having screened the callers so you can verify by caller ID / domain names and rep names that you're dealing with a legit entity. Also, to this day no mule jobs have been offered to me over the phone... it's too easy to track phone calls and bust their business model that way.

  3. Bad for exchange students by biryokumaru · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People like this are going to make it increasingly difficult for legitimate students to come over here.

    --
    When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
    1. Re:Bad for exchange students by biryokumaru · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Americans acting like "ridiculous reactionaries!?" Never!

      --
      When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
    2. Re:Bad for exchange students by arth1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why would bright and honest students want to study here? The education level and challenges tend to be higher in good overseas universities.
      I can see that for some, it may be attractive to pay a small fortune to go to a US university and sail through to an easy degree, but then again, a US degree isn't worth much anymore, at least not outside the US.

      If I were to hire you, you'd do much better to include a reference to something you'd published than your degree, unless you went to a university you cannot buy admission to.

    3. Re:Bad for exchange students by interkin3tic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1. That's all nationalities, ass
      2. It's not all citizens, it's politicians who like to look tough on crimes but want to avoid the liabilities that come with cracking down on some of the really big white collar criminals.

    4. Re:Bad for exchange students by Dodgy+G33za · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Dunno what it is like in the US, but in Australia we have a large overseas student population since they tend to get residency when they complete their courses. Used to apply for just about any course run by any shonky provider but they have tightened it recently. Not that I am saying it is a bad policy - getting bright people migrating once they have reached working age is actually a pretty smart way to run migration.

  4. Re:WTF is wrong with certain countries ? by symes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Communities of expertise - once a few people get going, networks develop, success motivates others, and so on. Just like banking tends to be highly localised in a few places.

  5. Re:WTF is wrong with certain countries ? by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, it's similar to how certain countries have better presence for certain businesses than others.

    i.e. Outsourcing / back office / call centers - India
    Electronics - Japan, South Korea
    Cars - Germany, Japan
    etc

    Once an ecosystem is in place for a given LoB, more people will join it. Weather it's legal or illegal depends entirely on how strict the laws are and what opportunities exist as alternative.

  6. Serious Crimes + a Matrix inspired FBI logo by Required+Snark · · Score: 3, Informative
    These crimes have serious penalties:

    30 years in prison; fine of $1,000,000 or twice the gross gain or loss; and restitution

    20 years in prison; fine of $500,000 or twice the amount laundered; and restitution

    15 years in prison; fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss; and restitution

    10 years in prison; fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss; and restitution

    The charges are bank fraud, wire fraud, false use of passports and false use of identification.

    Plus, check out the FBI Cyber branch logo, obviously inspired by "The Matrix": http://newyork.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/images/nyfo093010_5.jpg

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
    1. Re:Serious Crimes + a Matrix inspired FBI logo by insufflate10mg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Though the falling 0's and 1's were first popularized in The Matrix, hackers have been using the falling 0's and 1's for years and years before that.

  7. Crime doens't pay well by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Informative

    Despite the popular opinion, when you actually research it you find crime doesn't pay much better than honest work. If you are doing simple scut work, you get paid low wages, legal or illegal. Sure there are crime lords that make a lot, the heads of the drug cartels are filthy rich... But then that would be just like the people who created legal business empires. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, etc all amazingly rich, richer than the drug lords, and did the same basic thing: Created a successful empire selling what people want.

    All in all, crime doesn't pay all that well, especially compared to the risks. It only pays well if you are higher up, just like in the legit world. You may hear about some mid level drug dealer that makes $200k and say "Wow, crime paid well," until you realize a mid level executive can make the same.

    Capitalism doesn't seem to suspend the rules for illegal enterprise.

  8. It means the charges can be presented at court by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

    An indictment is something you have to get in "capital, or otherwise infamous crimes," according to the 5th amendment. It often happens after arrest, but does not have to. Without an indictment, such a crime cannot go to court. It is a laugh test, basically. Fairly low standard of evidence (legally sufficient evidence and reasonable cause to believe) but makes sure people don't get dragged to court for a major crime if things are flimsy.

    Most states don't do indictments except in serious cases, but the feds do them for everything. Had a friend sit on a federal grand jury and they get an indictment for every single illegal immigration case. Never mind they are always 100% straight forward, they still get an indictment. The Feds don't bring something to trial without getting an indictment, even trivial stuff. Just how they do it.

  9. Re:Small time thieves... all smoke and mirrors. by causality · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Isn't it absurdly ridiculous how quick they are to catch/follow these types of scams/criminals, but completly useless at catching political lobbying/corruption and wall street scams that cause world wide market unstability, worse than oil price spikes or wars?

    They really have their priorities well planned by the powers that be (bought/bribed).

    In the case of political corruption and institutionalized financial scams, the people who benefit from them tend to be the same people who write the rules. They are also the people who determine things like the FBI's budget. It's a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse.

    --
    It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  10. Err.... by toby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What's "legal" about Microsoft?! Convicted multiple times in anti-trust actions. Never out of the courts. Lost thousands of smaller cases.

    Gates hasn't got an honest bone in his body, all his reputation laundering notwithstanding.

    --
    you had me at #!
    1. Re:Err.... by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you seriously think anti-trust law is at all similar to criminal law then you are extremely uneducated in legal matters. Fundamentally Microsoft is a legal business. I don't care if you don't like that, it is the truth. It is legal to sell software. Even using somewhat "underhanded" tactics like bundling is legal. It is only a problem if you are a monopoly. In that case it isn't illegal like "You go to jail for it," it just means that the government can take remedies against the anti-competitive behavior. Maybe fines, maybe forcing things to be released to the public, maybe a break up, etc. You'll notice it is civil actions that are taken, not criminal charges.

      However fine, leave him off the list then. I can find plenty more like Meg Whitman, Carol Bartz, and so on. There are a lot of business people who have made a lot of money in legit businesses. This is only concentrating on the super successful ones, the multi-millionaire to billionaire ones. The point is that if you are lucky, skilled, and are at the top of something in demand you can make a ton of money. Crime is no different. The crime bosses are not unique in their case.

      But please, leave off the MS stuff. It seems like you are allowing your personal dislike for them to cloud your judgment on the reality of the situation.