• by Ray Schultz , December 4, 2017

Roman Valeryevich Seleznev was sentenced on Friday to 14 years in prison for his role in a $50 million cyber fraud ring and a $9 million bank-hacking scheme.   

The purported Russian cyber-criminal, aka Track2, Bulba and Ncux, pleaded guilty to one count of participating in a rackeetering enterprise and one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, receiving 168 months in jail in each case. These pleas were entered on Sept. 7.

The racketeering case was prosecuted in the District of Nevada, and the banking case in the Northern District of Georgia.

Seleznev has also been convicted in the state of Washington for his role in a scheme to hack into point-of-sale computers. For that, he was sentenced of 27 months. All the sentences will run concurrently 

In addition, Seleznev was sentenced to three years of supervised release in each of the two new cases by U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, of the Northern District of Georgia.  

And, Seleznev was ordered to pay $50.8 million in the racketeering case, which was filed in the Northern District of Nevada, and $2.1 million in the bank case, which took place in the Northern District of Georgia.  

According to prosecutors, Seleznev admitted an association with the Carder.su identity theft and credit card fraud ring. Members of the group communicated through chatrooms, private messaging systems, encrypted email, proxies and encrypted virtual private networks, they said. 

Seleznev also admitted that he sold compromised credit card account data and other personal identifying information to fellow Carder.su members. His automated website allowed ring members to log in to and buy stolen data, the prosecutors state.

In the banking case, Seleznev worked with hackers to defraud a company that processed credit and debit card transactions for financial institutions. In 2008, hackers accessed 44.4 million debit card numbers, and used them to withdraw $9.4 million from 2,100 ATMS around the world in 12 hours, the prosecutors allege.

In addition to Seleznev, 55 individuals have been indicted in Operation Open Market, a federal probe of Carder.su, and there have been 22 convictions to date.