Ukrainian Authorities Dismantle Credit Card Fraud Gang

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) arrested four alleged hackers suspected of being members of a credit card fraud gang, responsible for damages of over $20 million.

The four suspects are believed to have hacked into computer systems belonging to Ukrainian and international financial institutions from where they stole information necessary to clone credit cards.

The gang had established a network of money mules inside the country made up of both Ukrainian and foreign citizen who withdrew money using the fake credit cards.

Fraudulently obtained financial information was also used to transfer funds out of the accounts of innocent victims into those of co-conspirators.

The SBU executed a series of raids earlier this month at multiple locations around the country. Many members of the network were arrested and computer equipment was seized.

The law enforcement officers found over 1,000 fake credit cards and data on another 100,000 that could have been used for cloning. Significant amounts of money and fake documents have also been recovered.

The Ukrainian SBU collaborated with the US Secret Service in the investigation. The losses suffered by US companies alone exceed $20 million. The four suspects were officially charged with hacking offenses.

It's worth pointing out that in order to create physical copies of credit cards, hackers need so-called credit card "dumps." This is the data stored on the magnetic stripes of credit cards.

In order to use the cards they also need the PIN numbers. That's why such data is usually much harder to obtain than the one required for fraud over the Internet, and usually involves skimming or hacking into payment processors.

This case is a good example of the increasing international cooperation in cyber criminal matters, even in countries that have a bad history of prosecuting such crimes.