Two Alleged Romanian Phishers Extradited to US

Two Romanian nationals indicted in January 2007 on charges of conspiracy to commit access device and bank fraud, as well as aggravated identity theft were extradited to the US to stand trial. Both of them face maximum prison sentences of 37 years and $1.5 million fines, but have pleaded not guilty.

Petru Bogdan Belbita, 25, of Craiova, Romania, and Cornel Ionut Tonita, 28, of Galati, Romania, were indicted along with five other co-nationals by a federal grand jury in New Haven on January 18, 2007 in connection to a phishing operation that targeted customers of People’s Bank, Citibank, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Comerica Bank, Wells Fargo & Co., eBay and PayPal.

One of the co-conspirators, Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, was arrested, extradited and sentenced to 50 months in prison after pleading guilty and asking the judge for leniency in July 2008. He was the first foreign defendant ever convicted in the United States for phishing.

The gang operated by sending fake emails on behalf of the targeted financial institutions, which claimed technical difficulties with their online banking systems. The emails directed users to fake pages under the gang's control where they were asked to log in. In order to add credibility to their trick, the phishers also launched DDoS attacks against the real websites making them unavailable.

Petru Bogdan Belbita was arrested on January 24, 2009 in Montreal, Canada, on a warrant issued in his name by the Interpol. On September 25, he was extradited to US and entered a not guilty plea on September 29. In addition, Belbita also face charges in Los Angeles for his role in a separate international phishing operation. 33 individuals, many of them Romanian, were charged in that case.

Cornel Ionut Tonita was arrested in Dubrovnik, Croatia on July 18, 2009, also on an Interpol warrant. He was extradited to US on September 4 and six days later pleaded not guilty in front of a judge.

The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut announced in a press release that multiple law enforcement agencies assisted in the investigation and apprehension of the suspects, including the FBI Legal Attachés in Vienna, Bucharest and Ottawa; Interpol in Zagreb and Washington, D.C.; the Romanian National Police; the Croatian Criminal Police Directorate and Croatian General Police Directorate; the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Canada Border Services Agency in Montreal; and the United States Marshals Service.