Romanian Cybercriminal Imprisoned for 45 Months for His Role in Phishing Operation

Scmagazine.com reported on 10th July, 2014 stating that on Tuesday, 9th July, 2014, Iulian Schiopu, a 34 year old Romanian man, was jailed for 45 months for his role in a massive phishing scheme involving many individuals.

The authorities claim that the malicious scheme involved sending phishing e-mails to customers impersonating various financial institutions. In one of such incidents, one local of Madison, Conn. received a doubtful e-mail purporting to be from People's Bank, Connecticut and contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the same.

Bankinfosecurity.com reported on 10th July, 2014 stating that the e-mail basically informed its recipients that their Internet banking access profile had been blocked. It further instructed them to click on a link furnished within text of the email that led to a Web page where they were asked to enter their personal information in an attempt to unlock their online baking profiles.

The fake Web page looked to be initiated by the People's Bank but in actuality it was hosted on a compromised system based in Minnesota. According to the U.S. attorney, any personal and monetary information given by the victim would be transferred to individuals located in Romania through email.

Schiopu with his aides, used and shared numerous collector accounts containing thousands of electronic messages consisting debit or credit card numbers, CVV codes, expiry dates, PIN numbers and other PII or personal identification details like names, telephone numbers, addresses, dates of birth and SSN (social security numbers). The associates then used these sensitive details to withdraw money from bank accounts and ATMs without authorization in Romania.

More investigation revealed that Capital One, Citibank, PayPal and Bank of America were also targeted by them.

Schiopu was arrested in Sweden in May 2013 and was sent back to the U.S. in September 2013.

US Attorney Deirdre M. Daly for the District of Connecticut accredited the vital assistance provided by the US DOJ (Department of Justice) Office of International Affairs, the FBI Legal Attaché based in Bucharest, Interpol, the Romanian National Police and the United States Marshals Service, as per news published by fbi.gov on July 10, 2014.

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