Aleksei Yurievich Burkov operates two online websites to trade credit card information, hack computers, and carry out other illegal activities.
According to the THN, Burkov (Russia) was sentenced to nine years in prison by a US court for operating two illegal websites. Burkov has committed device fraud and conspiracy to access illegal devices, identity theft, computer hacking, phishing, and money laundering.
Burkov claims to run a website called Cardplanet to buy and sell stolen credit and debit card information for $ 2.5 to $ 10 per card, depending on the data it contains.
According to the US Department of Justice, the website contains data on about 150,000 payment cards from 2009 to 2013, most of which are owned by US citizens and used for illegal transactions at a total cost. worth more than $ 20 million.
“The huge number of victims of Aleksei amounted to hundreds of thousands of people and damage over 20 million dollars,” East Virginia district attorney (US) G. Zachary Terwilliger said.
The second website operates as a forum and only invited people can participate, specifically for high-ranking criminals. Here, hackers can promote and trade personally identifiable information that they steal as well as malware, providing criminal services such as money laundering or cyber-attacks.
To become a member of Burkov’s forum, the registrant must pay an insurance fee of $ 5,000 and must be confirmed by the current 3 members in the cybercrime world.
Aleksei was arrested in December 2015 at Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv (Israel) and extradited to the United States in November 2019 after a failed appeal of extradition in the Israeli Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Israel.
Russia has asked Israel to release Burkov in exchange for its release of Israeli citizen Naama Issachar, who is being detained by the Moscow government for drug trafficking and stockpiling. However, Israel rejected the Russian proposal and accepted the US extradition request.
