Manhattan U.S. Attorny’s have charged 37 defendants involved in global bank fraud schemes that Used “Zeus Trojan” and Other malware to steal millions of dollars from U.S. bank accounts.

According to the Complaint, the defendants are Russian nationals who were members of the money mule organization that was responsible for retrieving the proceeds of the Zeus Trojan virus attack and transporting or transferring the money overseas. The Complaint alleges that Artem Tsygankov was a leader of the mule organization, who recruited mules and managed their activities, such as instructing the mules to withdraw the proceeds of fraudulent wire transfers to the mules’ accounts.

The Complaint further alleges that Maxim Panferov and Kristina Izvekovawere two mules in the same mule organization. PANFEROV allegedly opened at least four accounts at TD Bank with false foreign passports under the aliases “Vytautus Norkes,” “Arturas Nastajus,” “Maxim Demis,” and “Andris Porkes,” into which nearly $30,000 was wired fraudulently and from which PANFEROV withdrew approximately $23,000.

Hackers transferred cash into the fictitious accounts set up by the lovely Kristina by using a computer virus to gain access to the victim’s bank account numbers and PINs.

Authorities claim that Kristina used a fake Greek passport ot open a bank account at a TD branch in New York and tried pressuring other students to do the same.

Kristina entered the U.S in June 2009 but has since left after authorities captured 80 suspects in the cyber fraud ring.

Here is the FBI wanted poster with Kristina pictured in the middle.

UPDATE:

US authorities have captured a two more ZeuS-malware money mule suspects.

Lilian Adam and Dorin Codreanu, both 21-year-old natives of Moldova, were captured in Wisconsin. The arrest ends a month-long man hunt for the pair, named by the FBI on 30 September as among 37 suspects alleged to have set up bank accounts to receive stolen funds from compromised online banking accounts. The accounts were compromised using variants of the infamous ZeuS crimeware toolkit.

Unfortunately the cunning Kristina Izvekova still remains at large.

The arrest of Adam’s and Codreanu means that altogther four of the ZeuS money mule suspects have been arrested by US authorities. A further two turned themselves in while 11 remain on the run.

[Cheers pibillwarner.wordpress.com]

[Cheers theregister.co.uk]