11 men of different nationalities pulled a large-scale scam on nine major U.S. retailers, such as OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority and Forever 21. Three Americans, one Estonian, three Ukrainians, two Chinese, one man from Belarus and one whose origins are not yet known are responsible for hacking into the wireless networks of these enterprises. After gaining illicit access to them, the hackers stole credit and debit card numbers by using "sniffers," which are utility programs that keep track of the network activity.
The numbers, together with other private information, like passwords and account data, were sold to other criminals from the U.S. and some Eastern European countries. In order to make the numbers usable at any ATM, the hackers encrypted them on blank cards. The money transfers were performed via certain Eastern European bank accounts, which made them go unnoticed for quite a long time.
After their actions were discovered, the 11 men were charged with "computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy" for their participation in the scheme, as the United States Attorney's Office revealed in a press release.
"So far as we know, this is the single largest and most complex identity theft case ever charged in this country," said Attorney General Mukasey. "It highlights the efforts of the Justice Department to fight this pernicious crime and shows that, with the cooperation of our law enforcement partners around the world, we can identify, charge and apprehend even the most sophisticated international computer hackers." he added, underscoring that the lawbreakers had no chances of getting away with their crimes to begin with, given that hackers are increasingly in the spotlight these days.
The exact amount of money that was withdrawn from ATMs was not disclosed by the officials. They offered, instead, some information regarding the maximum penalty the defendants risk being sentenced to. If convicted on all charges, at least some of the leaders of the network face life in prison.
