This case is somewhat reminiscent of the story of the most famous Russian carder Vladimir Levin, who broke into the protection of the American "City Bank" and threatened the collapse of the global financial system. A two-part film in the cycle "Criminal Russia"was made about this story. There is a very dramatic moment in it, describing the panic that gripped the managers of City Bank when they learned that money was flowing out of the bank's accounts like water through their fingers, and there was nothing they could do about it.
About the same feelings were experienced by the heads of the Sverdlovsk bank Severnaya Kazna in January 2000, when they learned that an unknown hacker had penetrated the secrets of their plastic cards. Let his actions not threaten the global banking system, but they could destroy the program by serving 50 thousand customers through plastic cards and generally lead to the collapse of this solid institution.
On Monday, January 17, 2000, employees of Severnaya Kazna found out that their bank had lost 1 million 354 thousand 697 rubles in just the previous two days off. By 1,153,320 rubles more was received in cash at ATMs than debited from accounts. And another 156,877 rubles more money was withdrawn by card through retail terminals in stores in Yekaterinburg. At this rate of theft, any bank, even the world's largest, would soon burst like a balloon. Therefore, all forces were thrown into the search for intruders.
Employees of the bank quite quickly used checks withdrawn from ATMs to calculate the accounts from which the "extra" money was withdrawn. However, the bank's security service soon became convinced that these accounts were opened on front persons who were not directly related to the theft. Employees of the Department of Internal Affairs of the region joined the search for scammers. Igor Malchikov and Sergey Lyapustin left for Novouralsk in a hurry. The next three days were extremely difficult for them. They slept for a total of three hours in three days, and then mostly in the car, moving from one city to another. But two days after the theft was revealed, by the morning of January 19, the identity of all the criminals was established, and in the evening of the same day they were detained in Novouralsk.
As in the case of City Bank, there was also a hacker among the scammers who "cleaned out" the accounts of Severnaya Kazna. Perhaps 25-year-old Danila Gorozhanin was not allowed to sleep by the criminal fame of Vladimir Levin, and he also decided to rob a bank. He did not dare to fight with the computer protection system of some American bank and preferred another object — the Northern Treasury. Moreover, I worked as an electronic engineer in the Novouralsk branch of this institution and knew the specifics of its work.
Gradually, the idea of robbing a bank turned into an obsession for Danila, and he began to prepare for the crime ahead of time. In September 1999. The citizen stole the "administrator card", which allowed making unauthorized transfers of money to the bank's customers cards. But for the implementation of the planned scam, he needed assistants. Danila shared the idea with his friend Roman Senyukov. Tom liked the idea and was also excited about it. I just noticed that they couldn't do it together. Soon Roman attracted two of his previously convicted friends Dmitry Starchenkov and Evgeny Katasonov to participate in the upcoming crime.
The members of the criminal group had a lot in common: they were all young, almost the same age, lived in the same city and had no prejudices about how to get rich. But the roles were assigned according to everyone's qualifications. The citizen was assigned the position of a "think tank", which should think, work on the computer and not get your hands dirty with rough work. Senyukov assumed the role of brigadier. He was supposed to distribute tasks among the group members, instruct them, monitor the observance of secrecy, collect stolen money and distribute it among the group members. Katasonov was also assigned a very important mission, probably for his sleight of hand.
On the home computer the citizen made for Katasov the certificate of the representative of the bank "Northern Treasury". With this "ksiva" Evgeny visited one of the shops in the city of Kirovgrad and stole from there a bank terminal worth about a thousand dollars. Now Danila has the opportunity to prove to his accomplices that he is not some lamer, but a real hacker. Which the citizen brilliantly did. On his home computer, he hacked the program of the stolen terminal and obtained the encrypted code of the Kirovgrad branch of Severnaya Kazna Bank, indicating the location of operations with plastic cards. After committing theft, he intended to direct the investigation on the wrong path. Meanwhile, his comrades organized the opening of accounts for figureheads to receive plastic cards. After that, Danila-the master reprogrammed the cards passed to him. For each of them, he made an additional 800 thousand rubles and 50 thousand dollars. The appetite of the criminals turned out to be enviable. Only on five forged cards they intended to deprive the bank of more than 12 million rubles.
A massive attack on ATMs of the Northern Treasury was carried out by fraudsters over the weekend. The citizen knew that on Saturday and Sunday the bank does not conduct reconciliation and scammers took this into account. They made every effort to withdraw as much money as possible in two days. Malefactors tirelessly ran around the cities of the Sverdlovsk region, emptying ATMs. And along the way, they also looked into stores where you could buy goods using plastic cards and shop to the fullest. Visits of the criminal group were recorded in Novouralsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, Kirovgrad and Pyshma.
The scam worked brilliantly. ATMs hummed and counted out huge amounts of money into the hands of fraudsters. In two days, four unknown Novouralsk boys became richer by a million. They did not rush to spend money recklessly, but only allowed themselves to dress up a little and get a cell phone. The mountain of cash was pleasantly pleasing to the eye and I didn't want to part with it. However, I had to.
Operatives of the UBEP GUVD Boys and Lyapustin, head of the OBEP Novouralsk Alexey Ufimtsev and employees of the bank's security service worked hard. No matter how hard the attackers tried to confuse their tracks, they did not manage to evade responsibility. Just for two days and two nights, they felt rich. And on the third day, the joyous euphoria was replaced by deep sadness for them.
On January 19, Gorozhanin, Senyukov and Starchenkov were detained. Danila, the master, was particularly impressed by the appearance of the police officers. He froze in place, as if he saw the Mistress of copper Mountain in front of him. To the homegrown computer genius, it seemed that he had thought out and carried out the perfect crime. Therefore, neither the bank's colleagues nor the employees of the "authorities" will ever have the sense to guess that a modest electronic engineer was behind the theft. However, I miscalculated. The perfect crime that he had been preparing for at least half a year was solved in two days.
And yet we must admit that Danila Gorozhanin really brilliantly thought out his scam. The real criminal know-how was his combination, when thanks to hacking the program of the stolen terminal, he managed to direct the investigation on the wrong path. The bank's security service was sure that the theft was carried out through the Kirovgrad branch of Severnaya Kazna . But he wasn't so sure. If anyone has shown remarkable intelligence in this story, it is Igor, not Danila. It was his amazing insight that helped him find a lead to the criminals.
Operatives of the Department of Internal Affairs asked not to disclose the "military secret" and not to tell how they managed to solve the theft. The only thing that can be said is that during the interrogation of the seller of the store where the attackers bought goods using a credit card, I noticed one insignificant detail in the description of customers. He immediately contacted the Department, and colleagues helped. They were able to quickly obtain data from a number of organizations, analyze it, and inform Malchikov that his guess turned out to be a genius. After that, identifying and detaining fraudsters was just a matter of technique.
Only Katasonov managed to escape. Perhaps his previous criminal record convinced him that the police can solve crimes, and therefore decided to play it safe. I had to put Evgeny on the federal wanted list.
A few months later, the story of embezzlement of money from the" Northern Treasury " was continued. The PPS outfit, passing along Victory Street in Novouralsk, noticed a strange guy. Any person walking around the city in rubber gloves, if he is not Michael Jackson, will involuntarily cause certain reflections on his own account in others. And if he is still wearing these gloves to withdraw money from the ATM, then suspicion. The police detained the eccentric and took him to the police department. There they were taken up by OBEP operatives.
The detainee turned out to be a certain Evgeny Prisukhin, who confessed that he tried to withdraw money from plastic cards left to him for storage by an acquaintance named Katasonov. During the search of Prisukhin's house, police officers used plastic cards of the "Northern Treasury" forged by the citizen and more than 50 thousand rubles in cash.
During the investigation of the criminal case, most of the stolen funds were found. The damage to the bank was mostly compensated. And the specialists of Severnaya Kazna, after analyzing the actions of criminals, managed to improve their plastic cards, providing them with additional protection against unauthorized access.
Then there was the trial. Senyukov and Starchenkov were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, and the hacker citizen was assigned compulsory medical measures.
(c) Oleg Loginov
