Take A Plunge

A Hampton, New Hampshire, man has pleaded guilty to fraud charges against him for a fraud scheme. In the scheme he and his accomplish emptied brokerage accounts with the help of malicious Trojan horse software installation on victims’ computers. His guilty pleading restricts to one count of money laundering.

Alexey Mineev wired funds to many “drop accounts” stolen from banking and brokerage accounts between July and December 2007.

How they worked?

These criminals infected the PCS of the victim’s with malicious Trojan software. These software stole account numbers and passwords whenever victims used the systems to log into their accounts online. Another accomplice, Alexander Bobnev was busy sending e-mails to Mineev with screenshots of the hacked accounts. The screenshots showed Mineev the amount of money was being transferred into Mineev’s drop account. Mineev would then move the cash, (which sometimes amounted to US$10,000) to Russia, using services such as Western Union.

Trojans are malicious programs that enter users systems by showing themselves as benign items. Many a time video codecs, screensavers, and even security patches are used by hackers to disguise the Trojans.

Mineev will face as much as two years in prison and also a fine as high as $40,000. His plea agreement says that he would return the $112,000 made from the scheme.