Cops have toppled a $530 million cybercrime empire
Investigators have carried out one of the biggest takedowns ever of an online crime ring.
The scams: Set up in 2010, the self-styled Infraud Organization (motto: “In Fraud We Trust”) trafficked credit card details, Social Security numbers, and other stolen information on the dark web. It’s thought to have caused $530 million of losses to victims.
The bust: Svyatoslav Bondarenko, a Ukrainian, launched the group, which had almost 11,000 members. He and 35 other ringleaders have have now been indicted by the US Department of Justice.
Why it matters: Cybercrime is a big business, with hackers stealing $172 billion from people in 2017, and coordinating crackdowns across borders is tough. That makes this multinational bust a huge—if all too rare—success.
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