Cyber Detectives: Who and How Investigates Carding Cases on the Global Network

[Professor]

On the Work of Cybersecurity Services of Banks, CERTs, and Law Enforcement Agencies​

Introduction: Ghostbusters
The war against carding is fought not in dark alleys, but in labyrinths of IP addresses, blockchain transactions, and metadata. Those who confront digital fraudsters are a new breed of detective: cyber sleuths. Their weapon is not a gun, but an algorithm; not handcuffs, but a network trap. Their battlefield is the global network, and the enemy is often invisible. Carding investigations are a symbiosis of high technology, financial analytics, and good old-fashioned police work.

Chapter 1: The Front Line: Bank Security Ops Teams​

The first to be attacked are the banks' internal departments. Their task is not to catch the criminal, but to stop the transaction in real time and minimize losses.

• Anti-fraud analysts: They sit behind monitoring system dashboards (e.g., SAS Fraud Framework, IBM Safer Payments). Their eyes are neural networks, which analyze every transaction 24/7, looking for anomalies:
  • Behavioral biometric analysis: How does the user hold the phone? How quickly do they type the CVV? Does it match their usual "handwriting"?
  • Contextual patterns: Purchasing digital goods (cryptocurrency, airline tickets) at night, from a new device and via VPN, immediately after paying at a gas station in a neighboring city.
  • Risk scoring: Each transaction is assigned a risk score. If the threshold is exceeded, the transaction is blocked, and the client receives a text message or phone call for verification.
• Threat Intelligence: Specialists who monitor the dark web. They join carding forums under cover, buying "dumps" to check if their bank's cards are listed and blocking them in advance. They know the handles of key guarantors and monitor the emergence of new attack methods.

Chapter 2: Response Centers: CERT and Financial CSIRT​

At the country or financial sector level, there are Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERT/CSIRT).

• Financial and Credit Sector Cyberattack Monitoring and Response Center – FinCERT: A key player in the Russian Federation. It receives information about attacks from all banks, aggregates it, identifies targeted attacks on multiple banks simultaneously, identifies common threat indicators (IOCs) and sends alerts to all financial market participants. This is herd immunity.
• Global equivalents: US-CERT in the United States, and similar centers in Europe. They coordinate efforts between banks, payment systems, and law enforcement agencies at the international level.

Their methods: Malware analysis, phishing site dismantling, botnet tracking, proxy chain deanonymization.

Chapter 3: The Investigative Committee and the Police: Operatives and Investigators​

Once a crime has been established, law enforcement agencies (the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Combating Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and investigative bodies) become involved. Their task is to find and bring to justice living individuals.

1. Operational work ("in the field"):
   • Analysis of the drop chain: Reviewing thousands of hours of video from cameras at pickup points and ATMs. Contacting courier services. Visiting drop locations and interviewing neighbors. This is painstaking, meticulous work.
   • Controlled deliveries: If the dropper is identified, they may be placed under surveillance and allowed to receive the package in order to catch them red-handed and trace the organizer.
   • Recruiting "sources" within the community or working with recruited group members.
2. Digital Forensics:
   • Device seizure and examination: During a search, phones, laptops, and flash drives are seized. Forensic experts use specialized software (EnCase, FTK) to recover deleted files, browser history, and Telegram messages (even if they "self-destruct," traces often remain in the device's memory).
   • Metadata analysis: Establishing connections through phone numbers, IP addresses (often through requests to Internet providers), and geolocation of photographs.
   • Decryption: Hacking or brute-forcing passwords to encrypted containers and archives.

Chapter 4: Special Forces and International Cooperation​

Carding knows no borders, so work is carried out globally.

• Group "K" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (Department "K"): A specialized unit for combating crimes in the IT sphere.
• International organizations:
  • Europol (EC3 – European Cybercrime Centre): Coordinates joint raids, maintains criminal databases, and conducts dark web infiltration operations.
  • Interpol (Global Complex for Innovation): Rapid information exchange channels between police forces in 195 countries.
  • FBI (Cyber Division), Secret Service (in the US): Have vast resources and jurisdiction to investigate transnational schemes.
• Joint Investigation Teams (JIT): When a trail leads, for example, from Russia to Thailand, and the cash is transferred to Armenia, a joint investigation team is formed from all interested countries. This is bureaucratically complex, but effective.

Chapter 5: Crypto-Forensics: Blockchain Hunters​

A separate and highly paid caste of detectives are crypto-analysts from private companies like Chainalysis, CipherTrace, and Elliptic.

• Their weapon is blockchain transparency: All Bitcoin or Ethereum transactions are public. Their goal is to deanonymize them.
• Methods:
  1. Wallet Clustering: Analysis of transaction patterns to aggregate multiple addresses into a single "wallet" belonging to a single entity (exchange, mixer, criminal group).
  2. Dust Analysis: Tracking microtransactions that may link wallets.
  3. On-ramp/off-ramp identification: Establishing the moment when crypto was purchased with fiat (on a KYC-compliant exchange) or cashed out. By querying the exchange, the owner's identity can be established.
  4. Working with mixers: Modern tools can, with a high probability, trace the path of funds even through services like Tornado Cash, especially if an error is made at the input or output.

Their reports become evidence in court and the basis for the seizure of crypto assets.

Chapter 6: A Well-Tuned Orchestra: How an Investigation Works (Case Study)​

1. Signal: The bank detects a series of fraudulent transactions and blocks them. The data is transmitted to FinCERT.
2. Aggregation: FinCERT sees similar attacks on other banks. Common IOCs are identified (same IP addresses, phishing email templates, card numbers from the same database). This creates a picture of a targeted attack.
3. Transfer to law enforcement: The materials are transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Investigators begin to unravel the chain of custody from the dropper caught on camera, establishing his identity.
4. Investigation: After the dropper is apprehended, his phone is seized. Forensic investigators find correspondence with the operator, access the group's Telegram channel, and install payment wallets.
5. Crypto-trace: Crypto analysts track transactions from these wallets, find instances of cashing out via P2P platforms, and establish the identities of the cashers.
6. Detention of the organizers: Through controlled deliveries and analysis of all connections, they reach the group's administrators and technical specialists.
7. International interaction: If the servers are located abroad, requests for their seizure are sent through Europol.

Conclusion: A Pixel Mosaic
Investigating carding is like assembling a giant mosaic, where each piece is an IP address, a screenshot of a conversation, a camera frame, a crypto transaction, or the testimony of a small-time dropper. The modern cyber sleuth is a versatile professional: a lawyer, programmer, financier, and detective all rolled into one.

The main problem today is asymmetry: criminals act quickly and globally, while law enforcement is often constrained by jurisdictions and bureaucracy. However, the trend is clear: automated investigations, global cooperation, and breakthroughs in cryptoforensics are gradually depriving carders of their main asset — the illusion of impunity in the digital ocean. Hunters are learning to think like their prey, and with each passing year, the net becomes increasingly crowded for ghosts.