Police in Spain have said that they have arrested a cybercrime gang which comprises of a Ukrainian and Russian nationals who are said to be connected to the theft of over $1.24 billion from several financial institutions around the world. The gang is said to have converted the money into Bitcoin.
In a statement issued by Europol and the Spanish police, the gang leader who is called “Denis K.” and who comes from Ukraine, plus his three accomplices of Ukrainian and Russian origin were identifies and arrested in Alicante in Spain. In more than five years, the gang is said to have stolen over 1 billion euros from financial institutions around the world.
The gang is accused of engaging in cybercrime, which targeted more than 100 gloabl financial institutions and in many cases, managed to steal as much as 10 million euros in each heist. According to the authorities, almost all banks in Russia were affected and nearly 50 of them lost money in the attacks.
The gang managed to break into the banks’ internal banking networks buy sending phishing emails that have malicious attachments to bank officials. The malware offered the perpetrators full control of the affected hardware, enabling them to compromise ATMs and use them to withdraw huge amounts of money.
As reported by AP, the gang did not spend the ill-gotten cash but instead converted it into bitcoins. After exchanging, they used the cryptocurrency to buy different assets including vehicles and real estate in Spain.
In February, police in Thailand arrested a Russian national, Sergey Medvedev, who was said to be part of an international cybercrime organization and an administrator of the Dark Web site Infraud. The gang used the portal to sell stolen identities, credit cards as well as illegally obtained government documents. At the time he was arrested, Medvedev had more than 100,000 Bitcoins in his possession. This is equivalent to $820 million at the time. Sergey Medvedev was arrested on February 2 at his apartment in Bangkok at the request of the United States authorities.
