14 DAY TRIAL // One Turkish hacker was sentenced by a New York court to 8 years in prison and $55 million in restitution. Ercan Findikoglu faced nearly 58 years in prison for leading a cybercriminal organization that caused huge losses to banks across the world between 2011 and 2013.
Known online under several monikers, including “Segate,” “Oreon,” or “Predator,” Findikoglu pleaded guilty nearly a year ago. He admitted to several counts of computer intrusion conspiracy, access device fraud conspiracy, and effecting transactions with unauthorized access devices, says the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The gang led by Findikoglu managed to put a dent of $55 million in the “wallets” of banks across the world across three major campaigns, between 2011 and 2013. The short version is that they managed to hack into the systems of payment card processing companies, stole card data, and eliminated withdrawal limits on those cards.
The information was then passed to other members of the group who were charged with encoding the magnetic stripe of blank cards with the stolen data. Since they also managed to get away with PIN codes, withdrawing all the money on the cards was no trouble at all by using ATMs from all over the world.
Three campaigns to steal $55M
The first attempt resulted in the hackers making away with about $10 million. The second campaign resulted in about $5 more million. The third campaign, however, was the most successful, as they managed to withdraw about $40 million through 36,000 ATM transactions across 24 countries.
The Turkish hacker was arrested in 2013 in Germany and extradited to the United States in 2015. Once his eight years in prison in the United States are up, he’ll be sent back home to Turkey where he’s already been sentenced to another two decades in prison for payment card fraud.
Dozens of other members of the cybercrime gang have also been convicted over the past few years, authorities said.