Romanians Convicted in Cybertheft Scheme

Two Romanian men have been convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit service marks, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and 12 counts each of wire fraud.

The convictions were in association with a scheme to infect victims' computers with malware, then steal credit card and other information to sell on dark market websites, mine cryptocurrency, and engage in online auction fraud. According to court documents, Bogdan Nicolescu and Radu Miclaus, along with a third co-conspirator who has pled guilty, operated their scheme from Bucharest beginning in 2007. The defendants ultimately infected and controlled more than 400,000 individual computers, primarily in the United States.

Nicolescu, Miclaus, and their co-conspirator earned money from their victims by selling credentials on the Dark Web, advertising fraud using email accounts created in the victims' names, cryptocurrency mining, and stealing money and cryptocurrency through credit card fraud.

Sentencing is scheduled for August 24 in the Northern District of Ohio.

Read more here.

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