[SCCC] Fw: [NCCC] Followup: Romeo Stepanenko, 3Y0RR

[n6tj at sbcglobal.net]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin Normoyle" <knormoyle at surfnetusa.com>
To: "NCCC Reflector" <nccc at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 10:25 PM
Subject: [NCCC] Followup: Romeo Stepanenko, 3Y0RR


> Back in 2005, someone here posted the story of Roman Vega, aka Romeo
> Stephanenko, going to trial in the US for credit card fraud.
>
> I just ran into a presentation from the Blackhat 2009 conference, which
> mentioned him, with details I hadn't read before.
>
> He's in jail now, convicted. But surprisingly, he was not quite the
> leader/innovator/technology leader in the emerging online credit card
> fraud industry. The initial news release didn't include all this detail.
>
> He might be able to receive QSL cards as inmate #59198-004 at the
> Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center. :)
>
> I looked around, and I didn't notice any hams posting post-2005 about
> what happened, or detail beyond the press release, so here's some detail.
>
> There's a picture of Roman in the presentation also. He was 39 in 2004.
>
> http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-09/ALPEROVITCH/BHUSA09-Alperovitch-RussCybercrime-PAPER.pdf
>
> "One of the first individuals to create a sustainable business model
> based on cybercrime was a certain Roman Vega of Ukraine, a.k.a. Roman
> Stepanenko, a.k.a. "BOA" (now known as inmate #59198-004 in the Federal
> Bureau of Prisons), who started a website called Boa Factory
> (http://www.boafactory.com) in the late 1990s. Boa Factory was a
> one-stop clearing house for buying and selling virtually all assets
> produced by financially-motivated online criminal activity of that time.
> One could get plastic cards, raw "dumps" (magnetic stripe data from bank 
> and
> credit cards), traveler's checks and even counterfeit passports. Vega
> was eventually arrested while vacationing in Cyprus (a popular European
> destination for Russian and Ukrainian tourists) in June 2004, extradited
> to California and charged with a 40-count indictment of wire fraud and
> trafficking in stolen credit cards. Another indictment in New York for
> access device fraud and money laundering followed 2 years later and
> convictions eventually secured.
>
> Eventually, Boa Factory evolved into another organization called
> CarderPlanet (http://www.carderplanet.com), which was founded in May
> 2001 and operated through August 2004, at which point it was shut down
> by senior members of the group following high profile arrests of key
> members earlier that summer (including Boa). CarderPlanet was reportedly
> organized following a meeting at a restaurant in a Ukranian port city of
> Odessa between Roman Vega, his protege, individual going by the nickname
> 'Script', and several others. Together, they became the administrators
> (or 'Capo di Capi' as they chose to call themselves) of the forum and
> evolved it into a mature marketplace for purchase, review and
> distribution of cybercriminals goods and services, as well as providing
> tutorials for new members looking to get a quick 'Getting Started' guide
> to online fraud schemes."
>
> -kevin
> ke6rad
>
>
>
>
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