A Look Inside an Identity Theft Website Shut Down by Federal Prosecutors

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Share the knowledge

Ever wonder just how identity theft and financial fraud happens? CallService.biz was a site that served as a front for thousands of bad guys to take advantage of identity theft, and use stolen financial information such as bank account and credit card numbers. Run by Dmitry Naskovets, from the Czech Republic, and Sergey Semashko, from Belarus, CallService.biz was open about what it did – providing identity theft and financial information theft criminals with service representatives who would call the financial institutions at which the compromised financial accounts were based, and pretend to be the account holders – in your choice of English or German – and would confirm the financial transactions being made by the crooks.

According to a Federal indictment filed in New York, CallService.biz allegedly assisted more than 2,000 criminals in carrying out more than 5000 fraudulant transactions.

What is perhaps most amazing is that CallService.biz openly advertised on various websites, and was up – unstopped – for nearly 3 years!

“People such as Naskovets believe that simply being outside of the United States gives them the freedom to carry out their criminal activities,” said Joseph Demarest Jr., FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge. “The victims of these criminal schemes pay dearly, but online crime affects everyone by reducing the public’s confidence in the Internet and the losses affect all businesses and customers with increased costs. Cyber crime has no boundaries, and the FBI will continue to work with our international partners to pursue these criminals wherever they may try to hide.”

“Cybercrime poses an increasingly grave threat to American and European financial institutions and their customers,” added United States Attorney Preet Bharara. “As alleged, Dmitry Naskovets’s website was essentially an online bazaar for dangerous identity thieves. His website was especially dangerous because it allegedly was specifically designed to bypass the usual security measures that bank and business customers have come to rely on. Today, we have shut down that business and protected untold thousands of potential victims of identity theft. This Office is committed to pursuing the perpetrators of cybercrimes wherever they may be, and will continue to work with the FBI and our foreign law enforcement partners to bring this new breed of criminals to justice.”

The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.

CashApp us Square Cash app link

Venmo us Venmo link

Paypal us Paypal link

According to the Federal indictment, “In June 2007, NASKOVETS, a Belarusian national, and co-conspirator SERGEY SEMASHKO, also a Belarusian national who is charged by the Belarusians, created CallService.biz (the “Website”), an online business intended to assist identity thieves in exploiting stolen financial information, such as credit card and debit card numbers. The Website was, among other things, designed to counteract security measures put in place by financial institutions. These security measures, for example, require persons seeking to make transfers or withdrawals from accounts, or to conduct other financial transactions to verify by telephone certain information associated with the account. Businesses that accept online or telephone purchases by credit card have similar security measures. Representatives at such financial institutions and businesses are trained to make sure that persons purporting over the telephone to be account holders appear to fit the account holder’s profile. So if an account holder is an American female, the screener is supposed to make sure that the caller speaks English, and does in fact sound like a female.

Through the Website, NASKOVETS and SEMASHKO, in exchange for a fee, provided the services of English- and German-speaking individuals to persons who had stolen account and biographical information to beat the above-described security screening processes. Specifically, those English and German speakers would, among other things, pose as authorized account holders and place telephone calls to financial institutions and other businesses to conduct or confirm fraudulent withdrawals, transactions, or other account activity on behalf of the Website users, who were identity thieves. Using information provided by the identity thieves over the Website, which was hosted on a computer in Lithuania, the fraudulent callers would, among other things, confirm unauthorized withdrawals or transfers from bank accounts, unblock accounts, or change the address or phone number associated with an account so that it could be accessed by the identity thieves.

For example, a request made to the Website could consist of the name of the bank the identity thief wanted to contact, the stolen account information and biographical information the thief had illegally obtained, and instructions from the identity thief as to what to say, or the fraudulent transaction that was to be conducted, during a phone call to the bank. NASKOVETS and his co-conspirators would assign an appropriate individual employed by the Website, namely one who was the same gender and spoke the same language as the authorized account holder. After the requested call was made, NASKOVETS and his co-conspirators would report the results to the the identity thief, who could issue instructions for further telephone calls, if necessary.

The Website posted advertisements for its services on other websites used by identity thieves, including CardingWorld.cc, which was operated by SEMASHKO. The advertisements boasted that the Website had “over 2090 people working with” it and had “done over 5400 confirmation calls” to banks, referencing calls to defeat security screening procedures and confirm or conduct fraudulent transactions, as described above.

NASKOVETS was provisionally arrested by Czech law enforcement authorities on April 15, 2010, at the request of the United States pursuant to bilateral treaties between the countries. Also on April 15, 2010, in a joint operation, Belarusian law enforcement authorities arrested SEMASHKO in Belarus and Lithuanian law enforcement authorities seized the computers on which the Website and the CardingWorld.cc website were hosted.”

Get New Internet Patrol Articles by Email!

The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.

CashApp us Square Cash app link

Venmo us Venmo link

Paypal us Paypal link

 


Share the knowledge

One thought on “A Look Inside an Identity Theft Website Shut Down by Federal Prosecutors

  1. this information is good and will help aviods website that solicit for security information. pls there is hospitality company that claim to be in canada and UK for looking for applicant and promising them VISA free to canada on one social network called “MYWOLBOOK” there are other offers such as “will bank account with huge monies” pls i want find out if it is scam?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.