Feds: Sting targeted online financial fraud

Feds: Sting targeted online financial fraud

NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of people in New York City and around the globe were arrested today in an international sting targeting a black market for online financial fraud.

The arrests were made after an FBI investigation of hackers who steal credit card, bank and other information on the Internet — a practice known as “carding.”

According to a criminal complaint unsealed today in federal court in Manhattan, the suspects bought and sold hacking programs and stolen information via secure websites.

In June 2010, undercover investigators set up their own Web forum “as an online meeting place where the FBI could locate cybercriminals, investigate and identify them and disrupt their activities.”

The complaint charges a hacker using the name “OxideDox” with fraud. Agents allege they bought 15 stolen credit card accounts from the defendant on the phony site.

In one instance, an undercover investigator delivered a camera as payment to the defendant for one of the stolen information “dumps,” the complaint adds.

The registration process for the bogus website “required users to agree to terms and conditions, including that their activities on the US site were subject to monitoring for any purpose,” the complaint says.

The arrests were made in the United States and a dozen other countries in Europe and elsewhere, said two law enforcement officials. The officials estimated that the operation prevented hundreds of millions of dollars in thefts.