Russians Get Prison Terms for Massive Corporate Hacks in U.S.
Two Russian nationals were sentenced to prison for their roles in the most prolific corporate hacks in the U.S.
(Bloomberg) -- Two Russian nationals were sentenced to prison for their roles in the most prolific computer hack to hit corporate America.
Vladimir Drinkman was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Jerome Simandle in Camden, New Jersey, sentenced Dmitriy Smilianets who served as a black-market broker, to 51 months and 21 days in prison, or time he has already served.
Both men pleaded guilty in September 2015, with Smilianets admitting he sold information stolen from 17 retailers, financial institutions and payment processors, including Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., 7-Eleven Inc., Carrefour SA and J.C. Penney Co.
Smilianets and Drinkman, friends from Moscow, were arrested in June 2012 while vacationing in Amsterdam. Smilianets was extradited to the U.S. a few weeks later.
Prosecutors said Drinkman and three others stole user names and passwords, personal identification information, and credit- and debit-card numbers from 2005 to 2012. Smilianets sold that data, known by hackers as “dumps,” to resellers who used online forums to pass it to other individuals and groups, the U.S. said.
Smilianets charged $10 for American credit-card numbers, $15 for Canadian numbers and $50 for European numbers, while offering discounts to bulk and repeat customers, prosecutors said. Buyers encoded the data onto magnetic strips on blank plastic cards before making credit-card purchases and withdrawing money from automated teller machines, the U.S. said. Three of the 17 victims lost more than $300 million, according to prosecutors.
Still at large are Aleksandr Kalinin of St. Petersburg, Russia; Roman Kotov of Moscow; and Mikhail Rytikov of Odessa, Ukraine.
The case is U.S. v. Drinkman, 09-cr-00626, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Camden).
To contact the reporter on this story: David Voreacos in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey D Grocott at jgrocott2@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider, David Glovin
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