Hacker pleads guilty to data thefts
Russian accused of taking client info from banks
A Russian hacker admitted Monday that he executed the largest known cyberattack against a U.S. bank, pleading guilty to charges that he stole data on more than 80 million clients of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other institutions that netted hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.
The hacker, Andrei Tyurin, 36, was accused of stealing customer information from 12 financial news companies, banks and other financial firms, including Fidelity Investments, E-Trade Financial and Dow Jones & Co. His co-conspirators used the information to ply customers with spam emails promoting stocks, hoping to cash out at higher prices, the government has said.
Tyurin, who was apprehended last year in the Republic of Georgia and extradited to the U.S., pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, illegal online gambling and computer hacking. As part of the deal with prosecutors, the government will recommend that he serve 15 to 20 years behind bars, though the final decision on his sentence will be up to the judge.
Tyurin’s plea before U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan, which was expected, brings U.S. authorities a step closer to closing the book on the devastating series of attacks on the financial system from 2012 to 2015.
The enterprise extended to all manner of other illicit digital activity, including identity theft and online sales of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and malicious software, as well as hiding the true source of the proceeds to launder the money through bank accounts, prosecutors said. Some of the money was laundered through a Bitcoin exchange.
The case of the accused mastermind of the scheme, Gery Shalon, hasn’t been resolved. People familiar with the case have said he is cooperating with authorities. Several other defendants in a related case either pleaded guilty or were convicted after a trial.
There was no indication in Monday’s hearing that Tyurin is cooperating. The stiff prison sentence proposed by prosecutors suggests he may not be, because prosecutors typically ask for lenience for defendants who provide useful information.
Appearing in court in blue prison garb and his legs shackled at the ankles, Tyurin spoke entirely in Russian through an interpreter, including a lengthy series of “nyets” and “das” in response to questions from the judge. He agreed to forfeit more than $19 million, which was calculated based on the amount he and his co-conspirators agreed he would be paid for his work, prosecutor Eun Young Choi said during the hearing.
“I pleaded guilty to those counts because I am in fact guilty,” he told Swain through the interpreter. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 13.
In building their case against Tyurin, prosecutors amassed more than 3,000 pages of digital chats between him and his co-conspirators, primarily in Russian. They also recovered evidence from electronic devices seized from other defendants after they were arrested in Israel, as well as data from the companies documenting the intrusion into their networks.
Tyurin was charged in a sealed indictment in 2015, but he remained at large until his apprehension in Georgia and September 2018 extradition to the U.S.
Court filings show that Tyurin agreed to plead guilty a month ago and that he had been in negotiations with the government since the spring. He has been held at the federal jail in lower Manhattan since his extradition to the U.S.