Russian Banks Probed in Connection with Cyberfraud Investigation

The Russian Financial Monitoring Service is currently investigating if local banks were involved in cyberfraud and money laundering operations abroad, particularly in the United States.

This year, Russian authorities have engaged in a crack down on cyber criminal activity and an unprecedented level of cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies has been registered.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) collaborated with the FBI in investigating the 2008 RBS WorldPay cyber heist, which netted hackers over $9 million.

In addition, multiple local credit card fraud rings were dismantled and just last month, authorities announced a criminal investigation targeting Igor A. Gustev.

Gustev is believed to be the mastermind behind Spamit, which was the largest rogue pharmacy affiliate program until it closed down at the beginning of October.

RIA Novosti reports that during a recent meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the head of the Financial Monitoring Service Yury Chikhankin revealed that his organization is cooperating with US authorities in the investigation of cyber criminal acts committed by Russian citizens abroad.

"We are working together with the Americans. The question we are looking at is whether our Russian financial institutions could have been involved in these operations," Chikhankin said.

There is no information to officially tie this investigation to the international law enforcement operation codenamed "Trident Breach," but a connection may be possible.

Trident Breach led to arrests related to fraud instrumented with the help of the ZeuS banking trojan, in US, UK and Ukraine.

A number of thirty-seven money mules who laundered stolen money on behalf of Eastern European hackers were indicted in New York at the end of September. The majority of them are Russian nationals.

Two other Russians were convicted of wire fraud last month in Oklahoma in connection to similar money muling activities. They worked with fraudsters in Ukraine.