Cyber thieves made 5,100 purchases with Charlotte victims’ bank cards, feds say

The FBI cracked a decade-long cyber theft ring that made 5,100 purchases on debit, credit and bank cards of unsuspecting victims from Charlotte and Mooresville, prosecutors said Friday.

The ring lasted so long because thieves made $7 to $15 purchases, so small that victims never noticed them on their statements, U.S. Attorney Dena King said in a news release announcing the arrest of a 49-year-old man from Ukraine in the case.

“Greed knows no bounds, but justice has no borders,” King said.

Man arrested in Germany

Viacheslav Alexandrovich Basovych was arrested in Germany in December and extradited to Charlotte on Thursday. He is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, access device fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, court records show.

FBI agents uncovered 148,000 total fraudulent transactions amounting to $1.8 million in losses, according to an indictment unsealed after Basovych appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Carleton Metcalf in U.S. District Court in Charlotte on Friday.

The indictment doesn’t disclose where the other transactions were made or how many victims were involved.

Basovych remained in federal custody after his court appearance.

Victims from Charlotte and Mooresville

According to the indictment, Basovych and cohorts stole personal identifiable information and financial information from victims from October 2013 to February 2022. That included credit cards, bank cards and debit cards, court records show.

The indictment lists five victims from Charlotte and one from Mooresville, but doesn’t name them.

According to the indictment, Basovych and his co-conspirators used “a network of money mules to launder the criminal proceeds and to evade detection.”

The indictment doesn’t name the co-conspirators.

The FBI accuses Basovych and his co-conspirators of opening and controlling corporate merchant bank accounts at numerous U.S. financial institutions and payment processing companies., according to the indictment.

FBI: Cyber thieves profit from stolen identities

The institutions included a credit union in Charlotte that prosecutors don’t name in the bill of indictment against Basovych.

Basovych and an unnamed partner directed the money mules to open the accounts, according to the indictment. Basovych then linked the accounts with bank accounts under the co-conspirator’s control, prosecutors said.

Basovych placed the $7 to $15 charges from the merchant accounts under his control against the victims’ cards, and the charges were approved by the payment card issuers, according to the indictment.

“The world today doesn’t permit us to physically lock our identities away in a safe,” Robert DeWitt, special agent in charge of the FBI Charlotte division, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this vulnerability has given cyber criminals the opportunity to exploit and profit from stolen identities.

“The FBI is committed to ensuring that international cyber criminals do not operate with impunity,” DeWitt said.

The wire fraud conspiracy and conspiracy to commit money laundering charges each carry a maximum 20 years in prison and the access device fraud charge up to 10 years.

King thanked the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office for its investigation that led to the charges. She thanked the Interpol offices in Wiesbaden, Germany, and Washington, D.C., “for their substantial assistance,” and the Department of Justice Office of International Affairs for the arrest and extradition.