U.S. jury finds two Romanians guilty of stealing credit card info, infecting 400,000 computers
A federal jury on Thursday convicted two Romanian nationals of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud, among other charges, for using malware to steal credit card information and sell it on underground websites.
A 12-day trial found Bogdan Nicolescu and Radu Miclaus guilty on 21 counts. In addition to wire fraud and identity theft, they were convicted on money laundering and counterfeit charges.
The men were accused of infecting and controlling over 400,000 computers, most of which were in the U.S., as part of the long-running fraud scheme that included cryptocurrency mining. The scheme also involved robbing people of millions of dollars by duping them into making fraudulent purchases on supposed auction sites. Prosecutors described a methodical enterprise that used stolen credit card numbers to rent server space, register domains, and pay for virtual private network services.
