A Ukrainian was extradited from the Czech Republic to face charges that he was part of a multinational conspiracy of hackers who stole millions of dollars from an Atlanta payment processor in 2008.
Evgeny Tarasovich Levitskyy was arraigned last week in the U.S. Magistrate’s Court in Atlanta on four charges of conspiracy and bank and wire fraud. He faces up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million per charge if convicted.
“Our pursuit of the perpetrators of this international scheme has continued for over seven years and demonstrates that we will persevere in seeking justice for international cyber- criminals for as long as it takes,” said U. S. Attorney John Horn in a press release.
According to FBI and Secret Service investigators, the 31-year-old-man, also know as Vinch, Vinchenko, and M.U.R.D.E.R.E.R., acted as the lead casher in a team of more than a dozen conspirators from Russia, Estonia, Ukraine, Nigeria, the United States and Israel. To date, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta has charged 14 individuals for involvement in the heist.
In 2008, the team hacked their way into RBS Worldpay, then a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland in Atlanta. The unit handled payroll debit cards that allowed workers to get their pay at ATM machines, according to investigators.
The hackers broke into a number of accounts, investigators said. After raising the account limits to $1 million each, the team distributed 44 counterfeit debit cards to a network of cashers. Within less than 12 hours, the cashers withdrew over $9 million from more than 2,000 ATMs in a worldwind sweep through 280 cities in the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Estonia, Hong Kong, Canada and Japan.
Using one debit card, Levitskyy allegedly cashed out nearly $500,000.
The cashers allegedly got to keep 30 percent to 50 percent of their withdrawals, forwarding the rest to the central team of hackers who monitored their withdrawals live via their hacked access into RBS Worldpay’s system.
In 2014, one of those hackers, Sergei Nicolaevich Tsurikov, of Estonia, was extradited from Estonia and sentenced to 11 years in prison and to pay $8.4 million in restitution for his role in the conspiracy.
Two Russian nationals involved in the conspiracy were convicted in Russia about six years ago, but received suspended sentences. They also face charges in the United States.
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