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US court sentences Russian citizen to 10 years in jail for cybercrimes

According to the US authorities, Medvedev was a co-founder of a criminal group known as Infraud Organization.

© Dmytro Tyshchenko/Shutterstock/FOTODOM

NEW YORK, March 20. /TASS/. A court in Nevada sentenced Russian citizen Sergey Medvedev to ten years behind bars for being a part of a criminal group that committed cybercrimes inflicting $568 million in losses, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

"Sergey Medvedev, aka "Stells," "segmed," and "serjbear," 33, of Russia, pleaded guilty in the District of Nevada to one count of racketeering conspiracy in June 2020 and was sentenced today to 10 years in prison," the Department of Justice said in a statement on Friday.

According to the US authorities, Medvedev was a co-founder of a criminal group known as Infraud Organization. US prosecutors say the organization was "a transnational cybercrime enterprise" engaged in the mass acquisition and sale of fraud-related goods and services, including stolen identities, compromised credit card data and computer malware.

The US Department of Justice believes Medvedev operated an "escrow" service to facilitate illegal transactions among Infraud members between 2010 and 2018. For several years, Medvedev also served as Infraud’s administrator. In June 2020, he pleaded guilty to committing cybercrimes.

Along with Medvedev, the US court sentenced Marko Leopard, 31, of North Macedonia, to five years in jail as part of the Infraud case. He was found guilty of o one count of racketeering conspiracy.

According to US officials, the Infraud Organization inflicted approximately $2.2 billion in intended losses, and more than $568 million in actual losses, on financial institutions, merchants, and private individuals.

In line with the indictment, the Infraud Organization was created in October 2010 by Svyatoslav Bondarenko, 34, of Ukraine. The Department of Justice believes that the number of the network’s registered members surpassed 10,000 by March 2017.

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