Estonian RSB WorldPlay Hacker Extradited to United States

An Estonian man accused of playing an important role in the RBS WorldPay hit, which resulted in loses of over $9 million, was extradited to stand trial in the Unites States. The alleged fraudster, who was indicted along with other co-conspirators in Atlanta last year, entered a plea of not guilty yesterday.

Sergei Tsurikov, 26, from Tallin, Estonia was arrested by local authorities last year and was initially handed over to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) for questioning. At the time the FSB already had two other suspects indicted in the same case in their custody – Viktor Pleshchuk, 28, of St. Petersburg, Russia and Oleg Covelin, 28, of Chisinau, Moldova.

Since the Russian constitution specifically prohibits the extradition of its citizens, it meant that Pleshchuk would face charges in his home country. However, the US authorities pushed forward to extradite Tsurikov, who was subsequently brought in the country and appeared in court yesterday.

According to The Register, Tsurikov pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, computer fraud, and aggravated identity theft related to a 2008 fraud operation that netted him and his associates millions of dollars. Authorities claim that together with Pleshchuk, Covelin and another unidentified hacker, Tsurikov hacked into the secure network of the RBS WorldPay payment processor and used data from 100 payroll cards to steal over $9 million.

The RBS WorldPay hit is possibly the largest and well organized cyber fraud operation to date. After artificially inflating the limits of the associated accounts, the hackers arranged for cloned copies of the compromised cards to be created and disrtributed around the world. In less than 24 hours, money mules used them to withdraw cash from over 2,100 ATMs located in at least 280 different cities worldwide. Four residents of Tallin, Estonia and two from Hong Kong were already arrested last year for playing this role.

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