NEW YORK – Three Russian nationals pleaded guilty last week to helping engineer a $5 million ATM theft scheme, as much as $2 million of which was stolen from Citibank accounts.
The three, Ivan Biltse, Angelina Kitaeva and Yuriy Rakushchynets, are among 10 foreign nationals, most of them Russians, charged earlier this year in connection with a breach of a server that processes ATM transactions from 7-Eleven convenience stores. Those ATMs are branded by Citibank, but they're owned by Houston-based Cardtronics.
Court records indicate a Russian hacker cracked the ATM server in late 2007, and monitored transactions from 7-Eleven ATMs long enough to capture thousands of account numbers and PINs.
The suspects used the stolen account information to manufacture phony credit and debit cards, which were used to tap into accounts at ATMs in New York City. While Citi was the biggest victim, several other banks, including WaMu and Service Bank in Missouri, were also hit, court records show.
The funds stolen through the scheme, more than $5 million according to court records, were wired to Russia through a PayPal-like internet-payment system, called WebMoney.
WebMoney is an Internet system that individuals can use to transfer funds without having a traceable bank or credit union account. The system used "units," instead of any currency, which served as the digital equivalent of U.S. Dollars, Russian Rubles or European Euros, according to court documents.
In this particular scheme, the suspects would transfer 70% of the funds they obtained to accomplices in Russia.
