US Offers $2 Million For Info On Ukrainians Charged For SEC Hack
The U.S. Department of State today announced rewards of up to $1 million for information that would lead to the arrest or conviction of Ukrainian nationals Artem Viacheslavovich Radchenko and Oleksandr Vitalyevich Ieremenko.
The State Department is offering the $1 million bounties under the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program (TOCRP) and says that it has already paid over $130 million in rewards under TORCP for information leading to the apprehension of 75 transnational criminals.
Radchenko and Ieremenko were charged in January 2019 with securities fraud conspiracy, computer fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, as well as computer fraud in a 16-count unsealed indictment (SEC complaint here).
Radchenko allegedly coordinated an international securities fraud scheme, and recruited Ieremenko and other hackers who compromised the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval (EDGAR) system of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) via “directory traversal attacks, phishing attacks, and infecting computers with malware”.
After gaining access to SEC’s EDGAR system, according to the indictment, the hackers allegedly stole thousands of files between May 2016 and October 2016, including annual and quarterly earnings reports with confidential and non-public financial info disclosed by publicly traded companies to the SEC.
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They also recruited traders who, based on the information stolen in the SEC hack, made it possible for the conspirators to get an illicit profit of more than $4.1 million by taking advantage of the confidential information stolen from companies and their investors.
“Radchenko and Ieremenko sought to profit illegally from the scheme by selling access to the non-public information contained in these ‘yet-to-be’ disclosed reports and by trading in the securities of the companies before the investing public learned the same information,” the State Department says.
The SEC also filed a civil complaint in the District of New Jersey (DoJ press release, indictment) charging Ieremenko of conspiring with other individuals and entities as part of a securities fraud scheme that allegedly led to roughly $30 million in illegal profits using info obtained by stealing over 150,000 press releases from major newswire companies.
The SEC previously settled the fraud charges in the EDGAR hacking case with David Kwon and Igor Sabodakha, two of the traders who used the stolen nonpublic corporate earnings information stolen to trade in the securities of companies before the info was publicly disseminated.
Those in possession of any details that could help to apprehend or to convict the two Ukrainian suspects are advised to report it to the U.S. Secret Service at 1- 877-WANTED2 or [email protected], or to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or at the www.tips.fbi.gov tip website.
Meet Artem Radchenko and Oleksandr Ieremenko, whose scheme resulted in the illicit profit of over $4.5 million at the expense of valid investors and the economies they support. Keep up with our page this morning as we reveal more of #TheCyberSearch pic.twitter.com/UeK1tOMfbS— U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) July 22, 2020
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