Russian carder Roman Seleznev, son of a deputy, sentenced to 27 years in prison in the United States


    Roman Seleznev with Anna and her daughter. Photo: AFP

    American justice rarely succeeds in reaching out to Russian hackers and carders, who are constantly hacking in the United States and withdrawing billions of dollars from the US banking system. But when it succeeds and if the guilt is proven - the guys get the maximum time.

    On Friday, April 21, 2017, the Seattle Federal District Court sentenced Roman Valeryevich Seleznyov, a 32-year-old citizen of the Russian Federation, son of Valery Seleznyov , the current State Duma deputy from the LDPR party, to 27 years in prison .

    The novel is known in clandestine forums under the nicknames Bulba, Track2, 2pac, nCuX and others. He traded dumps through POS Dumps, track2.tv, bulba.cc, 2ras.ss sites - the latter sold millions of dumps taken from Target store terminals, Neiman Marcus, Michaels, Staples and Home Depot, in 2013-2014 it was the largest dump store on the Internet.

    Roman Seleznev was declared wanted by Interpol with a "red notice." He was detained at the airport of the resort town of Male in the Maldives by U.S. intelligence agents on charges of computer fraud, hacking, hacking bank accounts and stealing credit card dumps and damaging U.S. citizens and organizations in the amount of about $ 2 million.After that, he was transferred to the United States.

    Seattle Western District Federal Courtcharged Roman with hacking a system of retail outlets throughout the United States in 2009-2011. According to the prosecution, from his homes and apartments in Vladivostok, Indonesia and Bali, he managed the sites of international card forums to facilitate the theft and sale of stolen credit card data. 1.7 million dumps were found on Seleznev’s laptop, and more than $ 18 million dollars received as a result of illegal operations on bank accounts. With these funds, in particular, two apartments in Bali were purchased with a total value of $ 800 thousand.

    On the computer they also found photographs of Roman driving various sports cars, as well as next to bundles of notes similar to 5,000-ruble ones.



    According to the proven episodes, Seleznev’s schemes allowed reselling more than two million credit cards, which led to losses for the US banking system in the amount of more than $ 170 million. Considering the overall work of Roman’s career forums, the total damage could amount to billions of dollars. Among the victims are 3,700 financial institutions and 500 companies around the world, mainly in the United States. For this reason, federal prosecutors call Seleznev “the largest fish” from the carder world that has ever fallen into the hands of American justice.

    In a handwritten letter for the courtRoman spoke about the problems of his difficult childhood in Vladivostok, about his alcoholic mother, and how at the age of 17 he barely had enough money for food and utility bills. These difficulties forced him to make the “biggest mistake in his life,” as Roman writes, that is, he was forced to do carding. He stole credit cards and other data that could be resold. Over time, he improved his hacking abilities and increased volumes. Then the matter became even more serious. He got rich, married Svetlana and moved to Bali. In general, a typical history of the Russian carder. The tragedy happened after the terrorist attack in Marrakesh in 2011, where a part of his head was demolished, he fell into a coma for a long time, his wife left him and with all the money and daughter left for the USA. After leaving the coma, Roman returned to carding, met the Ukrainian Anna, whom she loved, and she still fights for him with American justice.


    Hacker’s common-law wife, Anna Otisko, and father, State Duma deputy Valery Seleznev after a press conference. Photo: ITAR-TASS

    The US Secret Service tracked down Roman Seleznev for more than ten years, judging by the court documents. The search ended with a successful detention in June 2014 in the Maldives.

    It is curious that the Maldives does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, so Roman felt safe there and purchased real estate. However, Interpol and the US Department of Justice through the State Department managed to negotiate with the law enforcement authorities of the Maldives to help with the detention of the Russian. For this, a special plan was developed, according to which the hacker was detained at the airport right before boarding a plane flying to Russia.

    Agents took Roman under surveillance immediately after he arrived on Male. During his journey from the airport terminal to the airport, he was already driving under tight surveillance: several agents were sitting with him on the bus, a couple of rows behind him. As soon as Roman handed over the passport at the airport control, he was immediately handcuffed.

    Local authorities simultaneously announced the expulsion of Roman from the country. Instead of a plane, the American special services put the Russian in a private plane, which delivered him to prison on the American island of Guam, and from there was transported to the United States.

    MP Seleznev subsequently offered $ 50 thousand for the video of the detention of his son and expressed the opinion that economic sanctions should be introduced against the Maldives.

    In August 2016, the jury found Seleznev's proven guilt in 38 episodes of the criminal case. Of these, ten relate to cyber fraud and nine to unauthorized access to computer networks. The prosecutor requested 30 years of imprisonment for Roman, and on April 21, 2017, the judge issued such a verdict, given that Roman had already served three years.

    Informative comment by SBKarr
    For those interested, where are 27 years old
    Mr. is accused of 40 episodes of criminal activity (felony), of which 38 are related to hacking. In US law, episodes are grouped, after which each group is either summed up or absorbed the greatest. The largest group is presented as punishment. In addition, there are crimes that are not grouped and summarized by the deadline unconditionally.

    In a court ruling, the episodes are grouped as follows (I’ll try to translate it so that it roughly corresponds to our legal terminology:

    • 1-10 - Electronic Fraud Fraud - 336 Months
    • 12-19 - Intentional Damage to Electronic Computing Devices Performing Important Operational Functions (Intentional Damage to a Protected Computer) in conjunction with
    • 21-29 - Illegal access to sensitive / protected information (Obtaining Information from a Protected Computer) - 60 months
    • 30-38 - Illegal access to devices (Access Device Fraud) - 120 months

    As a result, we take the maximum term - 336 months. They are added 24 months for paragraphs 39 and 40 (giving false testimony). We get 360 months, or 30 years.
    Paragraphs 11 and 20 appear to relate to the organization of criminal activity, and the jury decided that they were not proven.

    Now about some interesting things.

    In addition to this system, the United States has developed a special assessment table, which allows you to formalize aggravating parameters, and increase the period in proportion to severity. For Seleznev, the table takes into account, for example, the following items:

    • Loss in excess of $ 550 million - total financial losses exceed 550 million
      10 or more victims - more than 10 victims
    • Scheme committed from outside of the US - crime committed from outside the US
    • Organizer / leader - the defendant is the leader of a criminal organization
    • Obstruction of justice - defendant obstructed the administration of justice

    According to this table, the prosecution should have recommended a life sentence, but the use of such “modifiers” is permissible only in certain cases, for example, if the case falls under the RICO Act. And proving RICO is quite expensive, and not at all a fact. that Seleznev’s organization fits him. Therefore, “modifiers” were not used.

    All the more surprising is the fact that these calculations are in custody, because, according to American laws, they are not relevant and should have been removed and excluded from jury testimony. In my personal opinion, this is evidence of low qualification of legal assistance provided to a citizen of the Russian Federation, because such calculations clearly set the jury against the defendant.

    In the verdict, you can notice strangeness, in the description of the episode groups, it says:

    as to each of counts 1-10 (Wire Fraud), defendant shall serve 336 months to be run concurrently with one another, and also concurrently with all other counts except counts 39 and 40

    That is, the punishment for the episodes should be served together with other episodes, and together with other groups of episodes. If you think about it, this means that for 1 episode Wire Froud give 28 (!) Years. This incident is a historical feature of the United States. Fraud using federal communications (mail, telecom operators) and financial (banks) institutions is a particularly serious crime in the United States.

    The proposed prosecution scheme is interesting, according to which the charge against Seleznev was prepared in several states at once, and the episodes were distributed among everyone. At least two states were preparing to indict the RICO Act, demanding a life sentence. The interesting thing is: in any legal country, no one can be tried for the same crime twice, but in the United States a person can be tried for the same crime several times in different states, if the charges do not match the episodes completely. That is, it is worth replacing one episode with one for which no charge has been charged - and the new process in another state is ready. There are a lot of episodes in the Seleznev case.

    Sentencing Memorandum

    “Today I am alive and thank God for this for the government of the United States of America,” Roman writes. “I walked along a very deadly road until they arrested me.”

    Roman Seleznev is also charged with the prosecutor's office of Nevada and Georgia. It is not yet known whether the sentence in Washington state will satisfy the prosecutors of these states, writes the NY Times.

    Also popular now: