Yesterday, in a court in Seattle, America, Roman Seleznev, the son of State Duma deputy from the LDPR Valery Seleznev, was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Seleznev Jr. was found guilty of being the leader of a hacker group that stole $1.2 billion. The defendant himself, apparently hoping for the judge’s leniency, repented before the verdict.

“The crimes committed bring me great sorrow and shame. I repent of what I did,” the hacker addressed the court before the verdict was announced. From his written statement to Judge Richard Jones, it appears that he had previously maintained his innocence, following the advice of unscrupulous lawyers.

The jury unanimously found the son of State Duma deputy from the LDPR Valery Seleznev guilty of 38 counts of cyber fraud, intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, obtaining information from a protected computer, storing more than 15 unauthorized devices for accessing protected computer networks, and aggravated theft of personal information.

The Russian hacker was convicted exactly according to the sentencing table used in US federal courts. Based on the crimes, the table recommended a prison term of 27 years and payment of compensation in the amount of $169 million. The jury recognized this amount of damage caused by Roman Seleznev, and the Russian has already paid part of it by selling property in Bali and transferring his savings stored in Russian banks.

The prosecutor's office argued that the losses of American legal entities and individuals exceeded $1.2 billion, and requested a 30-year sentence for Mr. Seleznev. The prosecution explained its severity by the Russian’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation after his arrest. His readiness to fight cybercrime became known too late, prosecutors said in documents.

The American lawyer of the Russian hacker, Igor Litvak, petitioned the court that Mr. Jones, when determining the punishment, should not use a legal table, but look with sympathy at the personality of the convicted person. He noted that over the past few months, his client handed over to prosecutors four laptops and six disks of information delivered from Russia, and over two days in March he made contact with investigators who were checking the veracity of his testimony.

The prosecution, however, during this interrogation doubted the veracity and sincerity of the defendant’s testimony and noted that they did not find anything new in the hacker’s revelations. The prosecutor's office believes that Roman Seleznev not only hacked into the computer networks of American restaurants and stores, but also created online instructions for those wishing to use credit card numbers stolen by a criminal group, the leader of which, according to American intelligence services, he was.

Mr. Seleznev sent several letters to Judge Jones in March, which stated his admission of guilt and repentance for the crimes committed. The letter, which appears in the case under serial number 459, is, however, closed at the request of its author. The document contains “sensitive and confidential information,” the non-disclosure of which is in the interests of all parties, lawyer Igor Litvak explained to the court.

It should be noted that while imprisoned in the United States, the Russian defended his associate's degree in criminal law with honors, learned English and attended 15 courses in biblical interpretation. Now Mr. Seleznev intends to continue his studies to obtain a bachelor's degree in business management, court documents say.

Roman Seleznev was detained by US Secret Service agents with the assistance of local police in July 2013 at Male International Airport in the Maldives. Russian authorities claim that Roman Seleznev was kidnapped. Because of Mr. Seleznev’s case, Russia added four US Justice Department employees to its sanctions list.

Russian friends, loved ones and relatives, including his stepmother, asked the court to mitigate the punishment for the repentant hacker. The father of the convicted person, State Duma deputy Valery Seleznev, did not petition the American court on behalf of his eldest son. The deputy yesterday called his son's sentence "a foregone conclusion," noting that he considers him innocent of anything.

Larisa Saenko, New York

Russian hacker Roman Seleznev, the son of a Russian State Duma deputy, tried to mitigate his sentence with a letter in which he talks about how he grew up with an alcoholic mother, about the difficult everyday life of a cyber fraudster and his miraculous recovery after a serious injury. A federal court in Seattle did not believe the letter and sentenced Seleznev to 27 years in prison.

However, before moving on to the letter, a copy of which was in the possession of the BBC Russian Service, let us return to the events that preceded the verdict.

In mid-April, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington filed a 35-page motion with Judge Richard Jones outlining its reasons for seeking a 30-year prison sentence for Roman Seleznev.

This is an unheard of long term, to which even such large hackers as the Ukrainian Roman Vega, who received 18 years, or the Americans David Kamez (sentenced to 20 years) and Alberto Gonzales, who with his accomplices stole the details of approximately 45 million credit cards (also received 20 years).

The prosecutor's office noted that, in theory, Seleznev was even entitled to life imprisonment for the 38 crimes of which the Seattle jury found him guilty.

His trial took place in August last year and took 8 working days.

As prosecutors wrote to the judge, “from behind a keyboard in Vladivostok and Bali, Indonesia, Seleznev and his accomplices hacked into thousands of computers around the world, including the systems of numerous small businesses in the Western District of Washington. Seleznev stole millions of credit card numbers from these computers, which he then sold to other criminals for use in fraudulent transactions.”

“But Roman Seleznev not only stole and sold credit card data,” it continues. “He was a criminal entrepreneur whose innovations transformed the carding industry,” that is, credit card fraud.

The Russian created two automated points of sale of credit card details, which allowed criminals to easily find and buy stolen data. Prosecutors say these “stores” made carding as easy as buying a book on Amazon.com.

Plant for many, many years

After this, Seleznev created, under the pseudonym 2Pac, “an online market on which dozens of notorious hackers sold the credit card data they had stolen.”

While providing supply of stolen information, Seleznev at the same time stimulated demand for it by organizing the POS Dumps website, where thousands of new criminals learned the basics of using this data for fraudulent purposes.

Context

US investigators: the son of deputy Seleznev was planning a prison escape

22.04.2017

“The largest dealer in stolen credit cards”: how the son of deputy Seleznev was tried in the USA

22.04.2017

A US court sentenced Russian Seleznev to 27 years in prison

22.04.2017
According to prosecutors, “Seleznev enriched himself from this activity and lived large at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers, whose businesses suffered losses or were destroyed as a result of Seleznev’s attacks.”

“Seleznev also brought enormous losses to financial institutions,” prosecutors continue. — Only the known losses associated with Seleznev’s crimes are approximately equal to $170 million. Its victims include 3,700 different financial institutions, more than 500 companies around the world and millions of credit card holders.”

The prosecutor's office does not exclude that the total amount of material damage caused by Seleznev and his accomplices may exceed a billion dollars.

Court sentences in the United States are calculated according to a special table, in which there are a maximum of 43 levels. The prosecutor's office emphasizes that the crimes for which Seleznev was convicted total 59 levels, and notes that "Roman Seleznev apparently harmed more victims and caused more losses than any other defendant ever brought before this court."

Calling on Judge Jones to give the Russian an unprecedentedly harsh sentence, prosecutors noted that Seleznev is “a man with extraordinary computer talent and extraordinary business acumen, but he has repeatedly chosen to take on cybercrime, each time expanding the scope of his criminal enterprises and the extent of the harm he caused.”

Prosecutors warned that “after Seleznev’s release, he will return to Russia, where he will once again be inaccessible to American law enforcement. The sentence should be based on the fact that Seleznev will not have the opportunity to carry out his cyber attacks for many, many years.”

Four laptops from Russia

The Russian’s current lawyer, Igor Litvak, disputed the prosecutor’s assessment of the damage, stating that his client sincerely repents of what he had done, and assured that he would never take up his old ways again, since he was mastering other professions in prison.

Proving that Seleznev intended to be released with a clear conscience, Litvak reminded the judge that “at his last interrogation, Seleznev not only honestly answered all the questions from the prosecutor’s office, but actively and truthfully provided all the information he had.”

As the lawyer noted, “during the interrogations, it seemed that the prosecutor’s office was showing great interest in this information. There was no impression that she doubted Seleznev’s veracity.”

In light of the above, Litvak wrote to the judge before sentencing, he was quite disturbed that prosecutors were now alleging that “Seleznev made statements that were obviously false, and thus further devalued the information he provided.”

According to the lawyer, this conclusion of the prosecutors is not confirmed by what happened during these interrogations, “especially in light of the fact that Seleznev initiated relations with the prosecutor’s office and in recent months provided her with four of his laptops and six drives, which were brought to the United States pro with the assistance of his lawyer."

"The defendant chose not to cooperate"

The prosecutor's office usually does not advertise its meetings with prisoners, knowing how other prisoners feel about these meetings. But in this case, Seleznev’s lawyer did not keep them secret, and the prosecutor’s office considered that she had the right to answer him, even though her answer would go into an open database.

From her answer it turns out that Seleznev first met with prosecutors in December 2014, that is, 5 months after he was arrested in the Maldives and handed over to the Americans. The idea was that he would provide information to the investigation and thereby make his fate easier. That's what the prosecutors thought, anyway.

As they wrote to the judge the other day, at that moment Seleznev still had fresh information that could be useful in other investigations. In the run-up to the meeting with Seleznev, prosecutors repeatedly told his then-defense attorneys that the value of his testimony—and, accordingly, the amount of relief he could count on—depended on how current his information was. In the fast-paced world of hackers, it becomes outdated very quickly.

Prosecutors warned that if Seleznev postponed his meeting with them until after the trial, which was then scheduled for May 4, 2015, then the value of his cooperation with the investigation would greatly decrease, if not disappear altogether.

“Defendant, however, chose not to cooperate,” prosecutors wrote. He behaved aggressively and repeatedly refused to name his accomplices. Seleznev explained that he was holding back this information because it was his trump card in negotiations with prosecutors. The latter did not need negotiations, but compromising evidence, which Seleznev did not provide then.

Overripe information

According to the prosecutor's office, in the following months she repeatedly discussed with the Russian's defenders the prospects for his cooperation with the investigation and again warned them that the information he had was steadily becoming outdated.

For 20 months, Seleznev did not tell her anything, but after he was convicted, he again expressed a desire to meet with prosecutors and provide them with information. These meetings took place on March 28 and 29 of this year, that is, shortly before the sentence, which Seleznev hoped to reduce in this way.

“Unfortunately,” prosecutors shrug, “he didn’t have any particularly valuable information.” Seleznev admitted that he was guilty and pointed to the people with whom he traded on carding forums. He also named some of the accomplices with whom he dealt from 2006 until his arrest in 2014.

“However,” prosecutors note, “much of the information he provided was already well known to the Secret Service.” The data that Seleznev shared with them was of historical interest, but could no longer help law enforcement officers in their current work. In other words, a good spoon for dinner.

Letter from the dungeons

As is clear from the recordings of telephone conversations between the Russian and his father, State Duma deputy from the LDPR Valery Seleznev, and friend Anna Otisko, there was a time when they pinned their hopes on the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

But Trump did not live up to these hopes. The prosecutor's office saw no reason to ask the judge to reduce Seleznev Jr.'s sentence for belated cooperation, and then he addressed the judge with a tearful letter.

He talks in broken English about his difficult childhood in Vladivostok, where his parents separated when the boy was 2 years old and he grew up with an alcoholic mother. One day he found her drowned in the bathtub.

Roman had an early interest in computer technology and talent in this area. He entered the path of computer crime and began to succeed. One day, bandits broke into his place, tortured him all night and forced him to give up all his money and passwords. So he decided to acquire real estate in Bali.

While on vacation in Morocco, he became the victim of a suicide bomb nearby, lost a large part of his skull, which is now being replaced by a titanium plate, and spent several months in a Moscow hospital.

“There was no justice today”

He was again involved in computer crime, but his arrest saved him from further sliding down an inclined plane.

The 11-page letter ends: “Today I am alive and thank God and the government of the United States of America. Before my arrest, I was heading down a very dangerous road. Thank you very much. R.S."

The prosecutor's office did not find the letter convincing and, it seems, they were right. After Judge Jones sentenced Seleznev to 27 years, lawyer Litvak read out his written statement, in which there were no more thanks to the United States. And there is this:

“I was kidnapped by the United States, and they know it’s true,” the condemned man writes. “I respect and understand the need for justice, but there was no justice today.”

Criminal cases have been filed against him in two other states. Now federal prosecutors there are deciding whether to try Seleznev.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Russian Roman Seleznev, the son of State Duma deputy from the LDPR Valery Seleznev, was sentenced to 27 years in prison in a case of cyber fraud. He was detained in the Maldives in 2014, from where he was extradited to the United States. According to investigators, he caused damage amounting to 170 billion rubles, and 1.7 million stolen credit card numbers were found on his computer. Seleznev wrote a letter to the court in which he admitted guilt and told the story of his life. The letter was published by The Seattle Times. Rain retells its contents.

Roman Seleznev writes that he was born in Vladivostok in 1984. When he was two years old, his parents divorced, and the boy stayed with his mother in a communal apartment. As a child, Seleznev became interested in computer technology. “It was clear to everyone that I could achieve great things in life,” he writes. Seleznev says he did well in school and went to college, where he continued to study mathematics and computer programs.

When he was 17 years old, his mother died of alcohol poisoning, writes Seleznev. After her death, Seleznev's uncle kicked him out of the apartment. He recalls that he was forced to quit his studies and find a job. Seleznev got a job at a local computer club, where he lived. The money he earned at the club was not enough for him and, as Seleznev writes, he became a hacker.

He stole and sold credit card numbers, this money was enough to live on. In 2007, he discovered a large database of credit cards, which he sold for “huge money,” Seleznev recalls. “I became greedy and lost control,” he admits.

In 2008, he got married and he and his wife Svetlana had a daughter, Eva. A year later, when his wife and child went on vacation, robbers came to Seleznev’s house. They tied him up and tortured him all night, after which they took away everything valuable, including his laptop. Fearing that they would return again, Seleznev and his family moved to Indonesia. At the same time, he announced in the online community that he had “gone up,” writes Seleznev.

But in 2010, he again took up cyber fraud. This happened after he was unable to find a job in his specialty. “I had more than enough skills, but no formal diploma,” he complains in the letter.

Seleznev writes that he and his wife were invited to Morocco. While he was having lunch at a restaurant in Marrakech, a suicide bomber blew himself up there. Seleznev received a severe head injury and fell into a coma. Doctors told his father and wife that he was unlikely to survive and, at best, would “remain a vegetable” on a life support machine for the rest of his life. After this, his wife left him, writes Seleznev.

Roman Seleznev's father is State Duma deputy from the LDPR Valery Seleznev. Photo: AP

However, after two weeks he emerged from the coma. The “miracle” happened after he was baptized by the hospital priest, writes Seleznev. In 2012, he filed an official divorce from his wife, who flew with her daughter to the USA. A year later, he became a hacker again and continued selling stolen credit cards. Then he met his girlfriend, Anna, who is still waiting for him in France. In 2014, Seleznev was arrested by US agents.

“I've made a lot of bad decisions in my life and I accept responsibility for that. I don’t blame anyone but myself, and I’m ready to answer for my crimes as a man,” writes Seleznev. At the end of the address, he writes that he “had to use his abilities for the good of humanity.” After his release from prison, Seleznev hopes to begin “working productively.” During his three years in prison, he had already received three diplomas - in the restaurant and hotel business, as well as in English, writes Seleznev.

“Understand, I was a desperate child who grew into a desperate adult,” Seleznev ends his letter.

Preview photo: Reuters

Before the verdict.

“The crimes committed bring me great sorrow and shame. I repent of what I did,” the hacker addressed the court before the verdict was announced. From his written statement to Judge Richard Jones, it appears that he had previously maintained his innocence, following the advice of unscrupulous lawyers.

The jury unanimously found the son of State Duma deputy from the LDPR Valery Seleznev guilty of 38 counts of cyber fraud, intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, obtaining information from a protected computer, storing more than 15 unauthorized devices for accessing protected computer networks, and aggravated theft of personal information.

The Russian hacker was convicted exactly according to the sentencing table used in US federal courts. Based on the crimes, the table recommended a prison term of 27 years and payment of compensation in the amount of $169 million. The jury recognized this amount of damage caused by Roman Seleznev, and the Russian has already paid part of it by selling property in Bali and transferring his savings stored in Russian banks.

The prosecutor's office argued that the losses of American legal entities and individuals exceeded $1.2 billion, and requested a 30-year sentence for Mr. Seleznev. The prosecution explained its severity by the Russian’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation after arrest. His readiness to fight cybercrime became known too late, prosecutors said in documents.

The American lawyer of the Russian hacker, Igor Litvak, petitioned the court that Mr. Jones, when determining the punishment, should not use a legal table, but look with sympathy at the personality of the convicted person. He noted that over the past few months, his client handed over to prosecutors four laptops and six disks of information delivered from Russia, and over two days in March he made contact with investigators who were checking the veracity of his testimony.

The prosecution, however, during this interrogation doubted the veracity and sincerity of the defendant’s testimony and noted that they did not find anything new in the hacker’s revelations. The prosecutor's office believes that Roman Seleznev not only hacked into the computer networks of American restaurants and stores, but also created online instructions for those wishing to use credit card numbers stolen by a criminal group, the leader of which, according to American intelligence services, he was.

Alexey Bogdanovsky

Russian citizen Roman Seleznev, accused in the United States of cyber fraud, signed a confession, but the prosecution still demands 30 years in prison for him, according to court documents available to RIA Novosti.

[...] Prosecutors argued at the trial that 1.7 million stolen credit card numbers were found on Seleznev’s computer during his arrest in 2014, and in total almost 3 million numbers were stolen. [...]

Confessions

Seleznev's initials sign the 11-page confession, handwritten in English with errors.

"I accept full responsibility for everything. I am afraid of punishment," the handwritten document says. “I’m Roman Seleznev, I want to say: I’m wrong and I apologize,” the letter says.

“I hope that one day I will get out of prison. I will work very hard to pay my debt to the victims and society. I will work honestly,” promises Seleznev, who has not previously admitted his guilt. He does not ask the court for leniency or a reduction in prison term.

“I have done many wrong things in life and accept responsibility for it. I am imperfect, I did the wrong thing. I can’t blame anyone but myself! I did it, and now I will answer as a man for my crimes,” writes Seleznev.

The author of the letter writes that “he himself wanted to cry” while listening to the testimony of the victims in court. The prosecution justified the court's jurisdiction by the fact that the victims of Seleznev's actions lived, among other things, in the state of Washington, and some of the victims spoke in court. “Some even lost their business because of me. I am so worried that people are suffering from what I caused them,” writes Seleznev.

Difficult childhood and hacking

Seleznev describes in detail his difficult childhood. According to him, from the age of two he lived with his mother in a room of about 10 square meters in a communal apartment. Seleznev mentions difficult financial conditions and describes how he independently learned to read computers while staying alone at home for a long time. One day he found his mother choking in the bathtub. “She is dying due to alcohol poisoning. I panic and cry very much from this pain - the loss of my mother,” writes Seleznev.

"I was not a problem for anyone and did not create any problems when I was young. I was respectful, polite and always tried to do good," Seleznev writes. However, according to him, he then took the path of crime.

"I was wrong and went in the wrong direction. My mother would never be proud of me for this life. I am starting to become a hacker and hack into computers to find credit cards and other information that I can sell," Seleznev said in his testimony.

“I was using my skills poorly and knew that this was shameful and wrong. In 2007, I found a large database of credit cards and sold them for a large amount of money. I became greedy and lost control of myself,” Seleznev writes.

Torture and terrorist attack

Seleznev describes being tortured in 2009 by burglars who broke into his home while his wife and daughter were on vacation. After this, Seleznev, fearing for his life, temporarily moved with his family to Indonesia on the island of Bali.

The defendant claims that he was going to quit hacking, but by mid-2010 he could not find a job due to a lack of education. “I again made the wrong decision to return to the criminal activity that I wanted to quit,” writes Seleznev.

He goes on to describe being wounded during a terrorist attack in Marrakech, Morocco, in 2011, where he was visiting as a tourist. “The waiter brings us juice, and then a suicide bomber explodes. The whole cafe explodes, there is blood and dead people all around. Half of my head explodes, another 20 innocent people die,” writes Seleznev. “I was in a coma and dying,” he adds.

According to Seleznev, he was saved only by urgent evacuation to Moscow for the operation. Relatives were told he would die and he was baptized in anticipation of death. However, according to Seleznev, a miracle happened: his consciousness began to return, after 3 months he got back on his feet, and a year later he was able to restore his speech.

Seleznev says his wife left him because she “didn’t want to take care of the vegetable.” “She fled Russia to the United States, taking our daughter and all our money,” Seleznev writes. For most of 2011 and 2012, he says spent in the hospital and then returned to hacking.

“In 2013, I again began hacking computers and selling credit cards,” the affidavit states.

Bride in Russia and studying in prison

Seleznev describes how, after his arrest in the Maldives, he was completely confused. “I was scared, confused, shocked, I didn’t understand even half of what was happening and what many people were telling me,” the defendant writes.

He said his former lawyers gave him "terrible advice" to plead not guilty to avoid life in prison. “Now it is quite clear to me and everyone else that my lawyers wanted another trophy and to use me for public and personal gain,” writes Seleznev. Over the years of the trial, he changed a number of lawyers, including a “star” lawyer who defended famous criminals.

Without asking for leniency from the court, Seleznev describes his exemplary behavior - in particular, he began to study intensively in prison. Seleznev describes that he has already received a number of diplomas for studying law and is studying for a specialty in hotel and restaurant management, and also plans to obtain a bachelor's degree in business management.

Seleznev also writes that he has a fiancée in Russia. “She truly loves and supports me for three years. She has a daughter, and I want to adopt her... Anna understands what awaits me in the United States, but she loves me and prays for my life every day,” the statement reads. indications.

"Please understand that I was a desperate child who grew into a desperate man. I want to pay for my wrongdoings and make things right as best I can," the affidavit states.

"Belated Effort"

At the same time, prosecutors Seth Wilkinson and Norman Barbosa, in a memorandum for the court, demand that Seleznev’s confession be not taken into account and propose to sentence him to 30 years in prison.

“The government believes that a sentence of 30 years is sufficient but does not exceed what is necessary,” the prosecution memorandum states. At the same time, prosecutors note that the severity of the crimes charged to Seleznev requires life imprisonment. They call Seleznev's case unprecedented in terms of the damage proven and describe the defendant as a prominent hacker who earned tens of millions of dollars from illegal activities.

Taking into account a possible reduction in his sentence for good behavior, Seleznev, who is 32 years old, could be released from prison when he is over 50, prosecutors say.

The prosecution believes that Seleznev does not deserve leniency because before the trial he refused to cooperate with the investigation, and after the verdict he could not provide the prosecution with sufficient information that could expose his accomplices and thereby help the defendant.

"The defendant's belated efforts to cooperate (with the prosecution) are insufficient to justify any reduction in sentence," the prosecution said in its motion.

In turn, the defense called for Seleznev to be given a humane sentence and, given his repentance, to reduce the sentence below the term prescribed in such cases.

Previously, Russia banned four US Justice Department employees from entering its territory because of the Seleznev case. They are Charles Seth Wilkinson, Ethan Ray Arenson, Katherine Worma and Norman Barbosa. Three of them (Wilkinson, Barbosa and Worma) work in the Washington State Attorney's Office. Wilkinson and Barbosa are prosecutors in the trial.

The jury in August 2016 returned a verdict of “guilty” to Seleznev on 38 of the 40 counts, acquitting Seleznev on the remaining two counts. The Russian was accused of 40 criminal counts under five counts: cyber fraud, intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, obtaining information from a protected computer, possession of more than 15 unauthorized devices for accessing protected computer networks and aggravated theft of personal information.

Roman Seleznev with Anna and her daughter. Photo: AFP

American justice rarely manages to reach out to Russian hackers and carders, who constantly carry out hacking in the United States and siphon billions of dollars from the US banking system. But when this is successful and if guilt is proven, the guys receive maximum sentences.

On Friday, April 21, 2017, the Federal District Court in Seattle sentenced 27 years in prison Roman Valeryevich Seleznev, a 32-year-old citizen of the Russian Federation, son of Valery Seleznev, a current deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the LDPR party.

Roman is known on underground forums under the nicknames Bulba, Track2, 2pac, nCuX, etc. He himself traded dumps through the sites POS Dumps, track2.tv, bulba.cc, 2ras.ss - the latter sold millions of dumps taken from Target store terminals, Neiman Marcus, Michaels, Staples and Home Depot, in 2013-2014 it was the largest dump store on the Internet.

Roman Seleznev was put on the wanted list by Interpol with a “red notice”. He was detained at the airport in the resort city of Male in the Maldives by American intelligence agents on charges of computer fraud, hacking, hacking of bank accounts and theft of credit card dumps and causing damage to US citizens and organizations in the amount of about $2 million. After that, he was transported to the United States.

The Western District Federal Court in Seattle charged Roman with hacking retail point-of-sale systems throughout the United States in 2009-2011. According to the indictment, from his homes and apartments in Vladivostok, Indonesia and Bali, he operated international card forum sites to facilitate the theft and sale of stolen credit card data. 1.7 million dumps were found on Seleznev’s laptop, and more than $18 million in bank accounts obtained as a result of illegal transactions. These funds, in particular, were used to purchase two apartments in Bali with a total cost of $800 thousand.

On the computer they also found photographs of Roman driving various sports cars, as well as next to stacks of banknotes similar to 5,000 ruble bills.

According to proven episodes, Seleznev’s schemes made it possible to resell more than two million credit cards, which led to losses for the US banking system of more than $170 million. If we take into account the overall work of Roman’s carder forums, the total damage could amount to billions of dollars. Among the victims are 3,700 financial institutions and 500 companies around the world, mainly in the United States. For this reason, federal prosecutors call Seleznev “the biggest fish” from the carding world that has ever fallen into the hands of American justice.

In a handwritten letter to the court, Roman spoke about the problems of his difficult childhood in Vladivostok, about his alcoholic mother and how at the age of 17 he barely had enough money to pay for food and utilities. These difficulties forced him to make “the biggest mistake of his life,” as Roman writes, that is, they forced him to take up carding. He stole credit cards and other data that could be resold. Over time, he improved his hacking abilities and increased his volume. Then things got even more serious. He became rich, married Svetlana and moved to Bali. In general, a typical story of a Russian carder. The tragedy happened after the terrorist attack in Marrakesh in 2011, where Roman’s part of his head was blown off, he fell into a coma for a long time, his wife left him and went to the USA with all the money and daughter. After emerging from a coma, Roman returned to carding, met a Ukrainian woman, Anna, whom he fell in love with, and she is still fighting for him with American justice.

The hacker's common-law wife Anna Otisko and father, Russian State Duma deputy Valery Seleznev, after the press conference. Photo: ITAR-TASS

The US Secret Service had been tracking Roman Seleznev for more than a decade, according to court documents. The search resulted in a successful arrest in June 2014 in the Maldives.

It is curious that the Maldives does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, so Roman felt safe there - and purchased real estate. However, Interpol and the US Department of Justice through the State Department managed to reach an agreement with law enforcement agencies in the Maldives to help detain the Russian. For this purpose, a special plan was developed, according to which the hacker was detained at the airport right before boarding a plane flying to Russia.

Agents placed Roman under surveillance immediately after he arrived in Male. During his journey from the terminal to the airport, he was already under close surveillance: several agents were sitting with him on the bus, a couple of rows behind him. As soon as Roman handed over his passport to control at the airport, he was immediately handcuffed.

Local authorities simultaneously announced the expulsion of Roman from the country. Instead of a plane home, American intelligence services put the Russian on a private plane, which took him to a prison on the American island of Guam, and from there he was transported to the United States.

Deputy Seleznev subsequently offered $50 thousand for the video recording of his son’s detention and expressed the opinion that economic sanctions should be introduced against the Maldives.

In August 2016, the jury found Seleznev’s guilt proven in 38 episodes of the criminal case. Of these, ten relate to cyber fraud and nine relate to unauthorized access to computer networks. The prosecutor asked for 30 years in prison for Roman, and on April 21, 2017, the judge issued such a verdict, taking into account the fact that Roman had already served three years.

Informative commentary by SBKarr

For those wondering where 27 years old is from

The gentleman is accused of 40 counts of criminal activity (felony), of which 38 are related to hacking. In US law, episodes are grouped, after which each group is either summed up or absorbed by the largest. The largest group is presented as punishment. In addition, there are crimes that are not grouped and are summed up unconditionally by the deadline.

In the court decision, the episodes are grouped as follows (I will try to translate them so as to roughly correspond to our legal terminology:

• 1-10 - Fraud using electronic digital means (Wire Fraud) - 336 months
• 12-19 - Intentional damage to electronic computing devices performing important operational functions (Intentional Damage to a Protected Computer) together with
• 21-29 - Illegally obtaining access to secret/protected information (Obtaining Information from a Protected Computer) - 60 months
• 30-38 - Illegal access to devices (Access Device Fraud) - 120 months

As a result, we take the maximum period - 336 months. 24 months are added to them for points 39 and 40 (knowingly giving false testimony). We get 360 months, or 30 years.
Counts 11 and 20 appeared to relate to organizing criminal activity and the jury found they were not proven.

Now about some interesting things.

In addition to this system, the United States has developed a special scoring table that makes it possible to formalize aggravating parameters and increase the sentence in proportion to the severity. For Seleznev, the table takes into account, for example, the following points:

• Loss in excess of $550 million - total financial losses exceed 550 million
  10 or more victims - more than 10 victims
• Scheme committed from outside of the U.S. - the crime was committed from outside the United States
• Organizer/leader - the defendant is the leader of a criminal organization
• Obstruction of justice - the defendant obstructed the administration of justice

According to this table, the prosecution should have recommended a life sentence, but the use of such “modifiers” is only permissible in certain cases, for example, if the case falls under the RICO Act. But proving RICO is quite expensive, and not at all a fact. that Seleznev’s organization suits him. Therefore, "modifiers" were not used.

All the more surprising is the fact that these calculations are included in the conclusion, since, according to American laws, they are not relevant to the case and should have been withdrawn and excluded from the testimony for the jury. In my personal opinion, this is evidence of the low quality of legal assistance provided to a citizen of the Russian Federation, since such calculations clearly set the jury against the defendant.

You can notice something odd in the verdict; in the description of the groups of episodes, the following is written:

as to each of counts 1-10 (Wire Fraud), defendant shall serve 336 months to be run concurrently with one another, and also concurrently with all other counts except counts 39 and 40

That is, the sentence for episodes must be served together with other episodes, and together with other groups of episodes. If you think about it, this means that for 1 episode of Wire Froud they give 28 (!) years. This incident is a historical feature of the United States. Fraud involving federal communications (postal services, telecom operators) and financial (banks) institutions is a particularly serious crime in the United States.

The proposed scheme of charges is interesting, according to which the charges against Seleznev were prepared in several states at once, and the episodes were distributed among all. At least two states were preparing to bring charges under the mentioned RICO Act, requiring life imprisonment. The interesting thing is this: in any legal country no one can be tried for the same crime twice, but in the USA a person can be tried for the same crime several times in different states if the charges do not completely coincide in the episodes. That is, it is worth replacing one episode with one for which no charges were brought - and a new trial in another state is ready. There are a lot of episodes in the Seleznev case.