WASHINGTON — More than a hundred individuals have been arrested and charged
this summer in a federal computer and Internet-related crime sweep known as
Operation Web Snare, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said today.
The operation was launched on June 1 and concluded today with several
arrests. In all, Ashcroft said, approximately 350 individuals were targeted
for major forms of online economic crime and other cybercrimes, resulting in
103 arrests and 53 convictions.
“Operation Web Snare is the largest and most successful collaborative
law enforcement operation ever conducted to prosecute online fraud, stop
identity theft and prevent other computer-related crimes,” Ashcroft said.
Thursday’s announcement marked the second consecutive day Ashcroft held a
media briefing to tout the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) online anti-crime
efforts. Wednesday, he said search warrants had been issued in the DOJ’s
first criminal probe of
copyright theft on peer-to-peer (P2P)
Ashcroft said Thursday the summer-long investigations revealed the
“continuing internationalization of Internet fraud.”
Of the 30 case summaries presented to the media, many of them previously
reported, six involved foreign nationals or U.S. citizens originally from
Morocco, Pakistan, China, Korea, Romania and Nigeria.
In one of the most recent cases, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles
charged Jie Dong last week in the largest PayPal and eBay fraud scheme to
date. The DoJ considers Dong, who has subsequently fled the country and is at large,
a “skilled Internet fraudster”; he allegedly stole more than
$800,000 from unwitting victims. The DoJ claims Dong conducted more than
5,000 fraudulent sales to eBay customers in just four months.
In another case, Jay R. Echouafni, CEO of Massachusetts-based Orbit
Communications, was indicted Wednesday along with five other individuals on
multiple charges of conspiracy and causing damage to protected computers.
According to the DoJ, Echouafni and a business partner launched “relentless”
Denial-of-Service attacks on Orbit’s competitors.
Using the services of computer hackers in Arizona, Louisiana, Ohio and the
United Kingdom, the DoJ claims the attacks caused more than $2 million in
damage to competitors in revenue and costs associated with responding to
the attacks. Echouafni, a U.S. citizen of Moroccan origin, has subsequently
fled the United States and is the target of what the FBI characterizes an
“international manhunt.”
Also on the run is Calin Mateias, an alleged Romanian computer hacker who
was charged earlier this month
with conspiring to steal more than $10
million in computer equipment from Ingram Micro in Santa Ana, Calif. The
indictment claims Mateias, a Bucharest resident, hacked into Ingram’s online
ordering system and placed fraudulent orders for computers and related
equipment.
The DoJ says Mateias then had the equipment sent to dozens of
addresses throughout the United States as part of an Internet fraud scheme.
Mateias’s U.S. co-defendants would in turn allegedly either sell the equipment and
send the proceeds to Mateias or repackage the equipment and send it to
Romania.
In a case where the DoJ successfully extradited a Cyprus citizen, Roman Vega
of the Ukraine is facing a 40-count indictment alleging credit card
trafficking and wire fraud. The DoJ claims Vega used Internet chat rooms to
gather thousands of individuals’ credit card information, which had been
illegally obtained from sources around the world, including credit card
processors and merchants. The DoJ also alleges Vega operated a Web site where
stolen and counterfeit credit card account information was bought and sold.
“Operation Web Snare … shows that America’s justice community is seeking to
anticipate, out-think and adapt to new trends in Internet crime,” Ashcroft
said.
