Hacker stealers of 18 mln roubles tracked down, charged

Story Filed: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 7:49 AM EST

MOSCOW, May 16 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Interior Ministry's investigation committee has charged with fraud two leaders of a hacker group which stole about 18 million roubles from credit cards since last year's December, the committee's spokesman Vladimir Martynov said at a press conference on Tuesday.

He said charged will be brought against six other hackers. The hacker group had signed a contract with a Russian electronic payments company KiberPlat for servicing Moscow's Internet Politshop.

The hackers cracked servers of foreign Internet shops and, stealing numbers of credit cards, did pseudo shopping in its own shop which allegedly traded in Russian press digests.

However, KiberPlat company was alarmed by the huge number of payments, over 5,000.

The investigation committee tracked down the hacker group within two months.

Its leader bought himself a Mercedes 600 and planned to set up another ring.

However, the hackers failed to cash most of their loot. The group fraud charge carries five to ten years in prison.

lyu/ezh

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