14 DAY TRIAL // A 37-year-old man from Romanian has been arrested on suspicion of stealing the details for 62,000 payment cards. He’s also believed to have attempted to hack into the website of Romania’s presidency in an effort to gain access to restricted information.
Authorities have identified the suspect only by his initials, B.S.T, but sources close to the investigation have told City News (report in Romanian) that the man is Teodor Bors, from the city of Cluj Napoca.
He’s said to be unemployed, and he doesn’t even have a high-school degree. Other Romanian news reports say that he is connected to the Russian mafia.
The Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) says that the man obtained the data for 62,000 payment cards between 2010 and March 2014.
He initially acquired a list of email addresses to the owners of which he sent out phishing emails asking for personal and financial information. The fake emails informed recipients of some problems in the bank’s systems, as a result of which they had to update their information.
The hacking operations were routed through servers in China and New Zealand. As far as the involvement of Russians is concerned, the Romanian is believed to have given them access only to the bank accounts with large amounts of money in them.
Bors is also said to have sold information from close to 3,500 cards to other individuals.
The criminal proceeds were either transferred through Western Union and Money Gram to the suspect’s girlfriend, identified by her initials, U.A., or converted into Bitcoin.
The Bitcoins were then converted into dollars and euros and transferred to various bank accounts owned by the man and his girlfriend. They often withdrew cash from these accounts.
U.A. has also been taken in for questioning, but investigators say there are other suspects that will be questioned.
After searching the suspect’s home, investigators found €153,000 and $41,000. Bors was detained for 24 hours and questioned. Today, prosecutors will ask a court that he be placed under preventive arrest.
Interestingly, prosecutors say the man also tried to hack into the website of Romania’s presidency (www.presidency.ro) in an effort to steal sensitive information. There are some sections of this site that are restricted to regular users.
However, representatives of the Special Telecommunications Service (STS), the body that administrates the website of the presidency, have stated that the site has never been breached.