14 DAY TRIAL // Sorin Pascu, 22-year-old, and Marius Braditeanu, both from Romania, were sentenced a few days ago, after they were arrested in July for an online phishing scam. Sorin Pascu will spend his next five and a half years in prison, while Marius Braditeanu, who was also the head of the illegal activity, got a six years in jail sentence, PC World reported today, citing the Italian publication "Il Giornale". The two Romanians were arrested in July after they had attempted to steal money from numerous Italians, using a powerful online scam with members in the entire country.
At the time of the arrest, the Italian police caught 18 Italians and 8 Eastern Europeans including the two Romanians, the same source mentioned above continued. It appears that the fraudsters conducted a traditional scam attack, but they managed to steal important amounts of money. Although nobody knows for sure how many people were affected by the fraud, the authorities told PC World that approximately 200 persons were reported to be victims of the scam.
Their attacks were initially based on fake emails sent from an email belonging to Poste Italiane, which works with all kinds of residents' information including bank accounts. Just like any other phishing scam, the messages sent to the users asked them to provide their financial information, PC World added. Obviously, important amounts of money were then transferred into other accounts.
What's interesting is that they took several security measures in order to remain anonymous while conducting the illegal activities. Most attackers used phone cards to connect to the web, in order to remain anonymous and avoid being identified by the police. However, according to PC World, the authorities managed to find them by analyzing the money transactions, which led the police to the bank account owners.