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The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York announced yesterday the extradition of a man who ran an online business that aided identity thieves in more than 5,000 instances of fraud from the Czech Republic to face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit credit-card fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
Authorities said Dmitry M. Naskovets consented to extradition and was brought into the United States last Friday. He appeared yesterday in Manhattan federal court.
According to the indictment, Naskovets and co-conspirator Sergey Semasko, both Belarusian nations, created CallService.biz to help identity thieves in exploiting stolen financial information. The website was created to counteract security measures adopted by financial institutions. These security measures, for example, require individuals looking to make transfers or withdrawals from accounts, or to conduct other financial transactions to verify by telephone certain information. Businesses that accept online or telephone purchases by credit card have similar security measures. Employees at such financial institutions and businesses are trained to ensure individuals claiming to be account holders fit the account holder's profile. For example, if an account holder is an American female, the screener is supposed to make sure the caller speaks English, and sounds like a female.
Through their site, Nasovets and Semashko provided the services of English and German speakers to individuals who had stolen account and biographical information to beat the security-screening processes. Using information provided by the identity thieves over the website, the fraudulent callers would confirm unauthorized withdrawals or transfers from bank accounts, unblock accounts, or change the address or phone number associated with an account so it could be accessed by the identity thieves.
Naskovets was arrested by Czech police April 15, 2010, the same date Belarusian authorities nabbed Semashko. Belarusian authorities also arrested additional co-conspirators for related criminal conduct. In addition, the FBI simultaneously seized the website domain name.
“The extradition of Dmitry Naskovets is the result of exemplary cooperation between U.S. and international law-enforcement agencies,” said Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara. “Naskovets allegedly operated an online, one-stop shop for identity thieves and fraudsters, aimed at compromising the security measures financial institutions use to protect their customers. We will continue to work with the FBI and our partners abroad to identify and stop cyber criminals wherever they execute their illegal trade.”
