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U.S. Indicts 2 Top Russian Hackers, Sanctions Cryptex
- The US has charged the owner of now-defunct carding shop Joker's Stash, Timur Shakhmametov, with overseeing the sale of tens of millions of cards stolen from US retailers.
- The shop was unique in that it claimed to sell only cards it had hacked itself, rather than reselling cards stolen by third-party hackers.
- The US has also charged and sanctioned Russian cybercriminal Sergey Ivanov, who went by the name Taleon and whose Cryptex cryptocurrency exchange allegedly laundered billions of dollars.
- Taleon was also found to have worked with BriansClub, which has sold at least $242m worth of stolen cards in the past two years, and was responsible for one-third of cards for sale in underground shops.
- Other charges include Taleon apparently moving large amounts of physical cash, and using one of the last remaining domestic cash-delivery services still operating after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
- Cryptex has received more than $1.6bn since its inception in 2018, according to Chainalysis.
- Joker's Stash is believed to have earned at least $280m (possibly over $1bn) in revenue.
- In January, Joker's Stash announced its closure after European law enforcement seized a number of its servers.
- Cryptex has allegedly become a major conduit for ransomware transactions, including what is believed to be the largest ransomware payment to date.
- Charges laid out in US Department of Justice indictments include both Taleon and Shakhmametov laundering virtual currency for ransomware actors and darkweb marketplace vendors.
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