Eight alleged members of an international cybercrime ring were charged yesterday with hacking into the computers of more than a dozen financial institutions and the US military’s payroll service.
Federal prosecutors in Newark said the scheme to steal millions from customer accounts was led by Oleksiy Sharapka, 33, of Kiev, Ukraine, who remained at large along with a second Ukrainian national.
The conspiracy is alleged to have begun about the same time Sharapka was deported in 2012 after serving time in federal prison in Massachusetts.
Four of the defendants had been arrested by yesterday morning, including key associates in New York, Massachusetts and Georgia accused of using stolen identities to try to cash out the hacked accounts, US Attorney Paul Fishman said.
The government said financial institutions whose computer networks were hacked included Aon Hewitt, Automated Data Processing Inc., Citibank, E-Trade, Electronic Payments Inc., Fundtech Holdings LLC, iPayment Inc., JPMorgan Chase Bank, Nordstrom Bank, PayPal, TD Ameritrade, TIAA-CREF, USAA, Veracity Payment Solutions Inc. and the payroll arm of the US Department of Defense.