Sports car, condominium and millions of "bucks": WWH Club administrators detained in the US

[Friend]

How fugitives from the CIS founded an online empire with thousands of followers.

Two alleged leaders of the online forum WWH Club, which investigators call "a combination of eBay and Reddit" in the criminal world, have been charged in the United States. The men are charged with running an illegal enterprise that helped more than 170,000 users buy stolen bank account data, hire hackers and carry out attacks on various websites.

The FBI managed to establish the IP addresses of the WWH Club website administrators after receiving a search warrant for the American cloud company Digital Ocean. According to the complaint, computer specialists working for the FBI developed special software that gave agents administrative rights on the WWH site, which allowed them to see thousands of emails, passwords and other user activity.

Pavel Kublitsky from Russia and Alexander Khodyrev from Kazakhstan are named in the indictment as administrators and moderators of WWH. It is reported that two years ago they applied for asylum in the United States. Now they face federal charges of conspiracy to trade and possess illegal devices.

According to the FBI, WWH site administrators monitored all transactions and other activities on the platform to "ensure compliance with the rules." It is noteworthy that forum users were forbidden to commit crimes in the CIS countries.

The Ministry of Justice declined to comment on the situation. Kublitsky's lawyer has not yet commented, and Khodyrev's fate remains unclear, while attempts by American journalists to contact him have not yet been successful.

FBI agents noted that after logging in to the WWH website, users were offered banner ads and access to guides on credit fraud, DDoS attacks, and purchases of stolen bank data.

Administrators also set up a scheme to train users to make purchases using stolen credit cards. Court documents detail how an undercover FBI agent signed up for one of the credit theft courses, paying $1,000 in bitcoin, and attended it for more than six weeks along with fifty other participants.

The FBI also reports that Kublitsky purchased a luxury condo in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, and Khodyrev bought a 2023 Chevrolet Corvette sports car at a South Florida auto show for cash, spending about $110,000. The documents indicate that both men, judging by the records, do not have official employment in the United States.

The criminal case against both is still classified as "secret" in the Central District of Florida. A copy of the affidavit was declassified on the morning of August 7 in the Southern District of Florida, where Kublitsky was arrested.

Source

 

[Friend]

WWH-Club: How Two Men Built An Empire On Stolen Credit Cards And Got Caught By The FBI
In the United States, the creators of the largest darknet market have been charged.

Two men have been charged with running the popular dark web market WWH-Club, which specialized in selling stolen credit card data and teaching cybercrime.

The US Department of Justice has charged 35-year-old Alex Khodyrev and 37-year-old Pavel Kublitsky with fraud and conspiracy to commit crimes. If guilt is proven, both face up to 20 years in prison.

Khodyrev and Kublitsky were detained in Miami, where they had lived for the past 2 years. According to the investigation, the defendants operated the WWH-Club and other related sites such as Skynetzone, Opencard and Center-Club from 2014 to 2024. The platform was used to sell bank account data and passwords, as well as to distribute cyberattack courses and avoid law enforcement.

The forum attracted users from all over the world and at the peak of its activity in 2023 had more than 353,000 participants. Administrators' income came from advertising, paid cybercrime courses, and membership fees that ranged from $111 to $670. Undercover, FBI agents participated in lessons and studied the methods of cybercriminals.

Investigators identified and photographed the suspects from their electronic footprints and found that they had arrived in southern Florida in late 2022, requesting asylum. Despite the lack of official work, the criminals rented luxury apartments and bought expensive cars, including Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac, which would be confiscated.

The WWH-Club forum continues to work, but its current administrators deleted the accounts of Khodyrev and Kublitsky and recommended that users change their nicknames in order to distance themselves from the accused. Flashpoint experts call WWH-Club one of the largest forums for trading stolen data.