US indicts two Russians accused of running billion-dollar money laundering schemes

CNN-

US federal prosecutors have filed charges against two Russian men accused of operating billion-dollar money laundering operations and seized websites associated with illicit crypto exchanges as part of a major US crackdown on Russian cybercrime.

One of them, Sergei Ivanov, has been one of the oldest professional cyber money launderers known to U.S. law enforcement for nearly two decades, according to Justice Department officials. The other man, Timur Shakhmametov, is accused of running a notorious cybercriminal marketplace called Jokers Stash, which U.S. authorities say made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from the sale of stolen payment card information.

Neither Russian is in U.S. custody, and the State Department is offering $10 million for information leading to their arrest or conviction.

An indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia accuses Ivanov and Shakhmametov of bank fraud and crimes related to money laundering. Shakhmametov was also charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud for his alleged access to stolen payment card data.

CNN was the first to report on the actions taken by American law enforcement.

The Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on Ivanov and Cryptex, a cryptocurrency exchange that the department says is associated with hundreds of millions of dollars in cybercrime.

Working with our Dutch partners, we shut down Cryptex, an illicit crypto exchange, and recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

The U.S. Secret Service investigated the case, seized web domains associated with Cryptex and obtained a court order to seize domains associated with two other money transfer and laundering services associated with Ivanov, the Ministry of Security said. Justice.

Ivanov and Shakhmametov are accused of helping run card websites like Jokers Stash, which sell stolen credit and debit card information. The sites published financial information stolen from tens of millions of Americans, according to US law enforcement. Additionally, millions of dollars in ransomware payments and drug sales on the darknet allegedly flowed through crypto accounts linked to Ivanov's services.

The action comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday in Washington, DC. Zelensky is expected to make an urgent appeal for more US support against Russia's war in Ukraine.

Biden hinted at the crackdown on suspected Russian cybercriminals in a statement Thursday saying the United States took steps today to disrupt a global cryptocurrency network, in coordination with international partners.

The US government has been trying for years to get Russia to crack down on cybercriminals operating from its soil, often to no avail. U.S. officials were briefly optimistic about improving this cooperation in January 2022, when Russian authorities arrested the suspect in a calamitous ransomware attack on a U.S. pipeline operator. But those hopes quickly faded with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine a month later.

We reiterate our call for Russia to take concrete steps to prevent cybercriminals from operating freely on its territory, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement Thursday.

For years, Jokers Stash has been a dominant player in the Russian-speaking criminal underworld. The crime forum touted data stolen in major breaches of U.S. companies. Shakhmametov allegedly used other online criminal forums to publicize Jokers Stash and the massive plunder of stolen data it held, the Justice Department said.

After American and European law enforcement seized some computer servers used by Jokers Stash, the forum announced its closure in 2021. But the hunt for the two Russian men by American law enforcement continues.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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