US indicts 11 in credit card scheme

According to the indictments unsealed Tuesday, three of the defendants are U.S. citizens, one is from Estonia, three are from Ukraine, two are from China and one is from Belarus. One individual is known only by an alias online, and his place of origin is unknown.

At a press briefing in San Jose, Calif., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the non-U.S. citizens under indictment were part of an international stolen credit and debit card ring.

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The ring operated in in Eastern Europe, the Philippines, China and Thailand, and the alleged foreign conspirators remained outside the U.S., Chertoff said.

The thefts were criminal actions committed for the personal gain of the defendants, whom investigators do not consider a national security threat, Chertoff said.

Still, he said, their alleged crimes demonstrated the weaknesses of cybersecurity in the U.S.

"Today's indictments are a reminder of a growing threat that every American faces in the 21st century -- the fact that each individual's greatest asset is their names, their identity," Chertoff said.

In the Boston indictment, the alleged ringleader Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez of Miami was charged with computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy. Gonzalez, who is in custody in New York, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if he is convicted of all the charges.

Gonzalez was a U.S. Secret Service informant who helped the agency take over a Web site being used to transmit stolen identifiers and stolen credit card numbers, U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said at the news conference.

"That was the first time ever that a computer system was wiretapped," he said.

But he said the Secret Service later found out that Gonzalez had also been feeding criminals information about ongoing investigations -- even warning off at least one person.

"Obviously, we weren't happy that a person working for us as an informant was double-dealing," Mark Sullivan said.

Indictments were also unsealed Tuesday in San Diego against Maksym "Maksik" Yastremskiy of Kharkov, Ukraine, and Aleksandr "Jonny Hell" Suvorov of Sillamae, Estonia. They are charged with crimes related to the sale of the stolen credit card data.

Yastremskiy was arrested when he traveled to Turkey on vacation in July 2007. He is facing related Turkish charges, and U.S. officials said they have requested his extradition.

Justice Department officials said Suvorov was arrested on the San Diego charges by German officials in March when he traveled there on vacation. He is in custody awaiting the resolution of extradition proceedings.

Indictments against Hung-Ming Chiu and Zhi Zhi Wang, both of China, and a person known only by the online nickname "Delpiero" were also unsealed in San Diego.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said those three suspects, together with five others, are still at large. Officials did not give an arraignment date for Gonzalez.

In May, federal prosecutors in New York indicted Yastremskiy, Suvorov and Gonzalez on 27 counts of fraud and identity theft. The charges stemmed from allegations that they hacked into a national restaurant chain's computerized cash registers and stole credit card information from customers. Eleven Dave & Buster's restaurants around the United States suffered at least $600,000 in losses, prosecutors said.

It was not immediately possible to reach Yastremskiy, Suvorov and Gonzalez for comment and it was not clear if they have legal representation.

This article was reported and written by Anne D'Innocenzio and Marcus Wohlsen for The Associated Press.

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