From coast to coast of America on the streets of its "Russian" crime

[Carding]

Somewhat belatedly, we see a message from the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri in Kansas City. It turns out that three Russian citizens and one naturalized US citizen with a Russian name and surname, but originally from Kyrgyzstan, were charged there.

We have two, and all four are accused of "conspiring to use stolen identities to defraud the United States by filing thousands of fraudulent federal tax returns" and money laundering. The indictment noted that the money acquired from this scam was mainly transferred to Russia.

The jury of the federal grand jury in Kansas City found sufficient for the trial the evidence provided to them of the guilt of 37-year-old Alexander Pavlov and 35-year-old Dmitry Schenke, who live in Russia and are accused in absentia, 29-year-old Russian Anton Vikharev, who lives in Canada, as well as 34-year-old US citizen Stanislav Lukyantsev, who is identified in the case as "Stanuslav" and lives in Philadelphia.

The charge was filed back in February, but then shelved and announced in June in a Philadelphia court in connection with Lukyantsev's arrest.

Vikharev was arrested in Canada and extradited to the United States, but both are not yet listed in our Federal Bureau of Prisons database. It follows from the accusation that these four did not bring anything new to the criminal ingenuity. From fiscal 2011 to 2016, they filed 7,176 false claims with our IRS federal tax office for a refund of $11,178,361 and received $2,020,569, of which $1,411,082 ended up in Russia.

IRS checks were deposited into Lukyantsev's accounts in several US banks, and then he withdrew cash from ATMs and laundered it, depositing it to other accounts in other banks, and from there transferred it to Russia to the accounts of Pavlov, Schenke and Vikharev.

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The Supreme Court of Ontario dismissed the complaint of Russian Anton Vikharev about the alleged violation of procedural norms in relation to him as part of the consideration of the request for his extradition to the United States and the requirement to suspend the proceedings on this basis.

At the same time, Judge Robert Goldstein, who was in charge of the case, rejected Vikharev's arguments that due to the significant distortions and omissions of information contained in the preliminary warrant for his arrest, his rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were violated.

The court also did not take into account the statement of the Russian lawyer, Boris Bytensky, according to which the information certified under oath by a police officer, in particular, misrepresented Vikharev as a person prone to escape, the need for his immediate detention was falsely exaggerated by the party requesting the extradition, that is, the United States, and the Russian did not at all seek to escape from justice. As a result of the distortion of the above facts, the lawyer argued, the procedural rights of his client were grossly violated.

As follows from the case file, which was reviewed by RAPS, Vikharev was arrested while boarding a flight from Toronto to Frankfurt, from where he intended to go to Moscow, at the request of US law enforcement agencies.

According to investigators in the United States, Vikharev, acting in collusion with two Russians, Alexander Pavlov and Dmitry Schenke, as well as a naturalized US citizen Stanislav Lukyantsev, stole the personal data of US citizens and, on their basis, presented false claims for reimbursement of allegedly overpaid taxes.

According to the statement of the US Department of Justice, in total for the period 2011-2016, the defendants filed 7,167 thousand fraudulent tax returns for the return of taxes in the amount of more than $11.2 million, of which the national tax service paid the defendants in the case $2 million. After cashing out and transferring the fraudulently obtained funds to their own accounts in American banks, the defendants, according to the US Attorney's Office, sent them to Russia.

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Russian Anton Vikharev, who was extradited from Canada to the United States, confessed to conspiracy to commit fraud using electronic means of communication and agreed to confiscate from him 537 thousand dollars (about 50.8 million rubles) received as a result of the offense, follows from the materials of the Federal Court of the Western District of Missouri.

 

[Carding Forum]

A Russian man sentenced to 15 years in the United States said the verdict was unfair.

Anton Vikharev, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the United States on charges of conspiracy to defraud, said in the appeal instance that the sentence was unfair and excessively harsh against the background of the suspended sentence that another person involved in the case received.

"The sentence is manifestly unfair, which violates the moderation clause of section 3553 (a) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code," the defense brief, which was sent to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and reviewed by RAPSI, says. — The verdict in this case is not based on the merits and indicates an improper administration of justice, and therefore it should be overturned, and the applicant should be given a new sentence."

Vikharev was sentenced to 180 months in prison, which is 117 months more than the time recommended by the prosecution and does not correspond to the calculation under the applicable directives.

Attention is also drawn to the unconditional cooperation of the Russian citizen with the investigation, the insignificance of Vikharev's role in the criminal scheme in which he was involved, being sure of the legal origin of the funds transferred to him. He did not participate in the filing of falsified tax reports, all his participation in the criminal scheme was limited only to the transfer of funds to third parties, the brief explains. It also notes that one of the defendants in the case, a US citizen Stanuslav Lukyantsev, received a suspended sentence.

According to court documents, the Russian originally came to the United States in June 2012 on a student visa that expired in September of the same year. For the next five years, Vikharev was allegedly in the United States illegally.

In July 2017, he left the United States for Mexico. From there Vikharev went to Cuba and then to Russia. He was arrested in June 2021 at the request of US law enforcement agencies in Toronto. He was subsequently extradited to the United States, where he appeared in Federal Court for the Western District of Missouri in July 2023 and pleaded guilty.

According to the US authorities, Vikharev, acting in collusion with two Russians-Alexander Pavlov and Dmitry Schenke, as well as a naturalized US citizen Stanuslav Lukyantsev, participated in the theft of personal data of US citizens and filing applications for compensation of allegedly overpaid taxes on their basis.

According to the case file, in 2011-2016, the defendants filed more than 7,100 fictitious tax returns in the amount of more than $ 11.2 million, of which the National Tax Service paid $ 2 million to the defendants. After cashing out and transferring fraudulently obtained funds to their own accounts in American banks, the defendants in the case, as indicated by the US Prosecutor's Office, transferred them to Russia.

The verdict was passed at the end of March this year. According to the decision of Judge Rosanna Ketchmark, Vikharev, who received a prison sentence, must pay about 2 million dollars (about 186.4 million rubles) in compensation and another 537 thousand dollars (about 49.5 million rubles) in favor of the United States authorities. The prosecution insisted on paying these amounts.

As reported by RAPSI, the defense of the Russian citizen on the eve of sentencing filed a final opinion (sentencing memorandum), expressing the conviction that, given the remorse and time spent Vikharev in custody, a sufficient sentence would be 35 months in prison.

"The gravity of Mr. Vikharev's offense is largely mitigated by taking into account his role in the conspiracy, as well as his demonstrated remorse and acceptance of responsibility. There is no need to further restrict Mr. Vikharev's legal capacity in order to prevent him from committing crimes in the future, given his extremely low risk of recidivism, the absence of any criminal record, and his voluntary consent to deportation upon completion of this case," the defense argued.

 

[Friend]

A court in the United States rejected the appeal of Russian Anton Vikharev, sentenced to 15 years in prison

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit did not consider the appeal against the sentence of Russian Anton Vikharev, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, granting the corresponding request of the prosecutor's office.

The prosecutor's office drew the court's attention to the fact that a plea agreement had been reached with Vikharev, which provided for his voluntary renunciation of constitutional rights, including appealing the verdict and other actions after its announcement.

"Vikharev entered into a plea agreement and refused to file an appeal consciously and voluntarily. By signing the plea agreement, Vikharev made it clear that he had read it, carefully studied every part of it with his lawyer, sorted it out and voluntarily agreed with it," the US prosecutor's office said in a petition seen by RAPSI.