ID Theft Ring Busted

I've stated that a lot of the big ID theft and check fraud rings are foreign in origin. This was a big ring that got busted; keep in perspective that an armed robbery will usually net a lot less money and about 8 yrs behind bars.

The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 7, 2007

NEW YORK: A grand jury has indicted 17 people, among them a Russian-Ukrainian couple, and a corporation on charges of identity theft, worldwide trafficking in stolen credit card numbers and other types of Internet crime, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The 173-count indictment, resulting from the second phase of a two-year investigation, says the defendants trafficked in more than 95,000 stolen credit card numbers and caused more than $4 million (€2.7 million) in credit card fraud.

Two of the defendants are a married couple, Vadim Vassilenko, 40, and Yelena Barysheva, 42, who pleaded guilty in September 2006 to falsifying business records and violating the state's banking law by running an unlicensed check cashing and money transfer business in New York.

Vassilenko, born in Ukraine, was sentenced to two to six years in prison, and Barysheva, born in Russia, was sentenced to one to three years. Their son, Alexey Baryshev, is being sought, prosecutors said.

The latest indictment charges that they and several other people, who have been arrested variously in Brooklyn, Maspeth, California, Oregon and Louisiana, moved more than $35 million (€23.77 million) in suspect funds through their service, Western Express International Inc.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney John Bandler said the defendants ran Internet ads saying they had countless credit card numbers and other identifying information to sell to crooks. One site was titled "The International Association for the Advancement of Criminal Activity."

At the same time, Bandler said, the defendants provided money transfer and currency exchange services for their customers.

Defense lawyer Daniel Gotlin called the new charges against Vassilenko and Barysheva pointless and repetitive, saying many were the same as those charged in 2006. He said prosecutors also were being vindictive because they had wanted harsher sentences.