Friend
Professional
- Messages
- 2,653
- Reaction score
- 850
- Points
- 113
$10 million for the head of a criminal who earned up to $1 billion on stolen cards.
The US Department of Justice has brought charges against Timur Shakhmametov in connection with the work of the now-defunct Joker's Stash carder forum. The defendant (using the nicknames "JokerStash" and "Vega") launched the forum in October 2014, and shut down the site in February 2021, 2 months after Interpol and the FBI confiscated some of the servers used to maintain the platform.
Elliptic estimates that Joker's Stash earned Shakhmametov between $280 million and $1 billion by selling more than 40 million payment card data. Over the years, Joker's Stash and its founder have played an important role in the cybercrime community, and from 2017 to 2020, the site became a kind of epicenter for the sale of stolen card data, which attracted the attention of the FBI.
However, despite the termination of the forum, the US authorities do not intend to allow Shakhmametov to calmly complete his activities. The US State Department announced a reward of $10 million for information on the whereabouts of Shakhmametov and another $1 million for information on other forum administrators.
The charges against Shakhmametov were included in a larger indictment, which also features another citizen, Sergei Ivanov. According to the US authorities, Ivanov is one of the key figures in the cybercriminal ecosystem engaged in money laundering. Ivanov is credited with managing the Cryptex, PM2BTC, UAPS and PinPays services, which helped launder funds received from carding, fraud and ransomware attacks.
Ivanov actively advertised these services on criminal forums, allowing users to register anonymously, move cryptocurrency through their platforms and convert it into fiat currency. In total, $1.15 billion was laundered through these services, of which about 30% were criminal funds, and $115 million were directly related to ransomware attacks.
The charge against Ivanov came a day after Dutch police confiscated server equipment associated with Cryptex and PM2BTC. In addition, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Ivanov and these services.
Source
The US Department of Justice has brought charges against Timur Shakhmametov in connection with the work of the now-defunct Joker's Stash carder forum. The defendant (using the nicknames "JokerStash" and "Vega") launched the forum in October 2014, and shut down the site in February 2021, 2 months after Interpol and the FBI confiscated some of the servers used to maintain the platform.
Elliptic estimates that Joker's Stash earned Shakhmametov between $280 million and $1 billion by selling more than 40 million payment card data. Over the years, Joker's Stash and its founder have played an important role in the cybercrime community, and from 2017 to 2020, the site became a kind of epicenter for the sale of stolen card data, which attracted the attention of the FBI.
However, despite the termination of the forum, the US authorities do not intend to allow Shakhmametov to calmly complete his activities. The US State Department announced a reward of $10 million for information on the whereabouts of Shakhmametov and another $1 million for information on other forum administrators.
The charges against Shakhmametov were included in a larger indictment, which also features another citizen, Sergei Ivanov. According to the US authorities, Ivanov is one of the key figures in the cybercriminal ecosystem engaged in money laundering. Ivanov is credited with managing the Cryptex, PM2BTC, UAPS and PinPays services, which helped launder funds received from carding, fraud and ransomware attacks.
Ivanov actively advertised these services on criminal forums, allowing users to register anonymously, move cryptocurrency through their platforms and convert it into fiat currency. In total, $1.15 billion was laundered through these services, of which about 30% were criminal funds, and $115 million were directly related to ransomware attacks.
The charge against Ivanov came a day after Dutch police confiscated server equipment associated with Cryptex and PM2BTC. In addition, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Ivanov and these services.
Source
