![\"busted_title_EN\"](\"https:\/\/media.kasperskydaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2013\/08\/05101905\/busted_title_EN.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Oriental Express<\/b><\/p>\n
An entire group of hackers made up of at least 17 people were involved in Western Express<\/a>, a group that set out to steal credit card numbers. The name \u201cWestern Express\u201d was something the cops came up with, since the scammers used the American Western Express International network for their transactions. The prosecution in Manhattan stated that the hackers managed to take control of over 95,000 credit card numbers, which they subsequently sold. The damage they caused cashed in at roughly $5 million. Today, 11 members of the group have been sentenced.<\/p>\n The Western Express group included citizens of a number of different countries, including Russians, Ukrainians, and Moldovans. The harshest sentence (up to 40 years) was handed out to the notorious Ukrainian hacker Yegor Shevelov, better known as Eskslubur or Esk, who was charged with the sale of 75,000 credit card numbers. The special services also arrested the administrator of the DumpsMarket forum, where sales of financial data were conducted. Yet at the same time, equally harsh sentences were handed out to the founders of the e-payment system WEI, Vadim Vasilenko and his wife Elena Barysheva, who were found in the investigation to have facilitated money laundering. They later confessed to everything.<\/p>\n Die Hard<\/b><\/p>\n Not everyone is so ready to admit to things. One Russian citizen in particular, Dmitri Smilanets, to this date refuses to confess his involvement in a case that is more or less closed. Even though his involvement has been pretty much proven, the evidence is there; with about 160 million credit cards that he compromised, the known virtual venues victimized in connection with him and his associates, and at least $300 million claimed against him in lawsuits. But he won\u2019t give! He says he\u2019s just the owner of the cyber-sports club Moscow Fife, and not any kind of thief. Nevertheless, law enforcement has reason to believe otherwise. Dmitri\u2019s got sidekicks whose guilt has already been proven. But we\u2019ll have to wait and see how it all ends.<\/p>\n Top Secret<\/b><\/p>\n Reynaldo Rivera is facing charges of disclosing personal information in the US. He was sentenced to jail time for his involvement in the group hacking of the Sony Pictures Entertainment network<\/a>. In 2011, Rivera was a member of the group Lulzsec, which penetrated the servers and stole the personal and registration data of several hundred thousand participants in contests held by Sony. Lulzsec then made all of that data publicly available. Even though no financial damages were incurred, the disclosure of that kind of personal information is prohibited by law. In addition to one year in jail, River also faces a fine of $605,000.<\/p>\n Attack thwarted<\/b><\/p>\n In Russia, the Tushinsky Court of Moscow has sentenced Pavel Vrublevsky to 2.5 years in prison. He was a shareholder in the Chronopay e-payment system. According to the facts uncovered in the investigation, Vrublevsky ordered DDoS attacks against a competing e-payment system, Assist, in 2010. The aim of the attacks, according to the investigation, was to undermine the contract between Aeroflot and Assist \u2013 Chronopay\u2019s competitor on the online payment market \u2013 in the hope that it would be terminated. This case is particularly remarkable as it is the first instance in Russian law in which an actual sentence has been handed out to both the organizer and the executors of a DDoS attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nothing to do with me!<\/b><\/p>\n Denis Chalovsky, a citizen of Latvia, has found himself in an uncomfortable situation. His fate will now be determined through major hearings in the European and American justice systems. The US believes Denis is a major criminal \u2014 according to their data, Chalovsky worked with Russian citizen Nikita Kuzmin and Romanian citizen Mikhai Paunesku to create and disseminate the Gozi virus, which has infected over one million computers around the world. The virus was used by the group to hack into tens of thousands of bank accounts and the damages wracked up to tens of millions of dollars. The victims of the Gozi virus include 160 NASA computers. In total, the charges against Denis add up to 67 years in prison. However, there is another side to the story.\u00a0Denis himself denies the charges, and he has witnesses on his side testifying that he has never been capable of creating this kind of Trojan, since he only knows how to repair computers, but is far from a capable programmer. This case gets complicated when it comes to the issue of Denis\u2019s extradition to the US authorities, who have no direct evidence of Chalovsky\u2019s guilt. In his defense, Denis has the backing of European civil rights organizations, who are speaking out against his charges. And this gives us something to think about\u2026<\/p>\n Interpol: Shanghai <\/b>calling<\/b><\/p>\n