NEW YORK, January 4 (RIA Novosti) – A US court sentenced on Friday a Russian national convicted of orchestrating a cyber-fraud scheme targeting US consumers and banks to three years in prison.
Vladimir Zdorovenin pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan last February to a count of conspiracy and a count of wire fraud. His sentencing has been postponed several times at the request of his defense attorney.
Zdorovenin, 55, was arrested in Zurich in March 2011 and extradited in January 2012 to New York, where he was charged with nine counts relating to a large-scale fraud. His son, Kirill, who was a co-defendant in the case, remains at large.
According to US authorities, between 2004 and 2005 the Russian father-son team “engaged in a series of crimes in Russia that victimized citizens of the United States through the use of stolen credit card information, multiple phony websites, and bank accounts in Russia and Latvia.”
The Zdorovenins were also accused of committing securities fraud by purchasing and selling thousands of shares of securities of several companies by trading in the accounts of US victims.
Kirill Zdorovenin was involved in the technical aspects of the fraudulent scheme, while Vladimir was in charge of its general supervision and the legalization of the stolen funds, prosecutors said.