Russian Hacker Gets 9-Year Jail for Running Online Shop of Stolen Credit Cards

Aleksei Yurievich Burkov, 30, pleaded guilty
in January this year to two of the five charges against him for
credit card fraud—one count of access device fraud and one count of
conspiracy to commit access device fraud, identity theft, computer
intrusions, wire fraud, and money laundering.
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Burkov admitted to operating a website named Cardplanet that
was dedicated to buying and selling stolen credit card and debit
card data for anywhere between $2.50 and $10 per payment card,
depending on the card type, origin, and availability of card owner
information.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Cardplanet hosted
roughly 150,000 payment card details between 2009 and 2013, most of
which belonged to U.S. citizens and used to make over $20 million
in fraudulent purchases.

“Aleksei’s massive fraud victimized hundreds of thousands of
people and resulted in over $20 million in losses,” said G. Zachary
Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of
Virginia.

“Tackling global cybercrime means holding accountable leaders
like Burkov who have allowed cybercrime to become organized and
hyper-specialized. I want to thank our prosecutors and
investigative partners for their terrific work on this complex
case.”

In addition to Cardplanet, Burkov ran another invite-only forum
website for elite cybercriminals where they advertised stolen
personal identifying information (PII), malicious software, and
other criminal services, like money laundering and hacking.

To become a member of Burkov’s cybercrime forum, one needed to
pay $5,000 as insurance and three existing members to vouch for
their excellent reputation among cybercriminals.

According to the court documents, such measures were put in place
to “keep law enforcement from accessing Burkov’s cybercrime forum
and to ensure that members of the forum honored any deals made
while conducting business on the forum.”

Burkov was arrested at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel,
in December 2015 and extradited to the U.S. in November 2019 after
he lost his appeals against extradition in the Israeli Supreme
Court and the Israeli High Court of Justice.

Before his extradition to the U.S., Russia also offered Israel a
deal to release Burkov in exchange for freeing Israeli citizen
Naama Issachar, imprisoned in Russia for drug offenses, but Israel
refused to release Burkov and approved the U.S. extradition
request.

Burkov had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison for the charges
he admitted in January, but today the U.S. federal district court
judge sentenced him to nine years in prison.