Russian hacker Eugene Anikin recieved a five-year suspended prison sentence for the fraud operation with U.S. payment system RBS WorldPay. Anikin and his accomplices have stolen from accounts of bank customers about 10 million dollars. The fraudsters managed to withdraw money from 2, 100 ATMs located in 280 different cities around the world, all within a twelve-hour period.

In February, 8, the court of Novosibirsk sentenced Anikin to five years of imprisonment. The protection hasn't expressed yet its desire to appeal the verdict, as the verdict corresponds the "last word" of Anikin.

According to 27-year-old programmer, he fully repented for his deeds. A year in prison gave him a lesson and he said he would never return on that path of crime. He also noted, that he already had an agreement with RBS WorldPay, under which he would compensate damages. No details of the agreement are disclosed.

As it became known, Anikin has recieved not a huge sum of the stolen money. During the hearing he said he had placed 100 thousand dollars and 50 thousand euros in a deposit box. In addition, Anikin noted that he also had bought two apartments in the center of Novosibirsk and an expensive car.

The U.S. Departament of Justice named the leaders of the criminal group — they are: Sergei Tsurikov from Tallinn, Estonia, Viktor Pleshchuk from St. Petersburg, Oleg Covelin from Chisinau, Moldova and a person known as "Hacker 3". Then the investigation revealed that the name of "Hacker 3" was Eugene Anikin. In addition to these members, many more people were also involved in the operation.

In early November 2008 Covelin discovered a vulnerability in the network of RBS WorldPay, a subsidiary of the Royal bank of Scotland that handles payroll and other payment-processing transactions for companies around the world. Hacker started to bring together various people with skills to exploit the vulnerability. Soon the hackers gained access to a database containing the account numbers and PINs of payroll debit cards that the company's customers give to their employees, according to Threat Post. The hackers allegedly sought to destroy data stored on the card processing network in order to conceal their hacking activity.

The scale of this operation is shown by the fact that money-cashing from ATMs occurred within 12 hours in 280 cities all over the world. Crime partners have been withdrawning money from ATMs located in the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, each participant received from 30 to 50 percent of cashed out money and sent the rest sum to the coordinators.

"This investigation has broken the back of one of the most sophisticated computer hacking rings in the world". It is said that this crime was the most sophisticated and organized computer fraud attack ever conducted, according to the U.S. Department of Justice,

Nowadays Russia is considered a haven for cyber crime. The number of attacks rises very fast. The Russian-American author Gary Shteyngart says: "It’s a country where there was never enough money, the money that the government paid was kind of a token, and you had to make your way by hook or by crook. There was always a great entrepreneurial spirit in Russia, but it has always been directed at things that not only help people, but also hurt people".

Sources:
www.rian.ru
www.lenta.ru
www.infosud.ru
www.justice.gov
www.softpedia.com
www.hostexploit.com
www.rbsworldpay.com
Ksenia Dzha