One of the major Bitcoin scammers in history has finally pleaded guilty. Sergey Medvedev, a Russian crypto scammer pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court of Nevada – news, confirmed by the Department of Justice (DoJ). Medvedev was a key figure in the Infraud Organization – online crime group, specialized in identity thefts, financial frauds, as well as racketeering.
The crime circle was created in 2010, with 8 years of active crime service until completely shut in 2018. In the eight years of fraud, Infraud became one of the largest cybercrime organizations in the world. Infraud also became one of the most preferred black markets for stolen credit card information.
The Department of Justice also noted that the direct amount of money, stolen by Infraud, is around $568 million, with indirect losses totaling over $2,2 billion. The fraudulent organization is also accused of selling over 4 million credit card numbers from all major card providers like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover.
According to the DoJ, the Infraud Organization, operating under the “In Fraud We Trust” motto, was founded by Medvedev, alongside Ukrainian Svyatoslav Bondarenko. Apart from the racketeering charges, Medvedev is also accused of providing escrow services to his fellow members, as well as operating an illicit crypto exchange, used by Infraud for money-laundering. The case documentation also reveals that Medvedev made over $1 million just from escrow, advertisements, and payments facilitation.
Infraud was among the best operating large cybercrime organizations. The card screening was immense, in order to provide fresh and authentic cards. Also, Infraud had a group of moderators, which oversaw different segments of the crime organization.
After eight “successful” years of online scams, Infraud operations were ceased by the combined efforts of authority forces of France, Australia, Kosovo, the U.S., Italy, Serbia and the United Kingdom. Thirty-six individuals were charged with international racketeering.
Medvedev was discovered and arrested in Bangkok in February 2018, during his family vacation. During the arrest, Thailand police discovered 100,000 BTC in Medvedev, worth a total of $914 million, as of press time.