FBI accuses Russian man of laundering money for a transnational cybercrime network

FBI accuses Russian man of laundering money for a transnational cybercrime network: FBI agents have arrested a Russian citizen accused of laundering money for a cybercriminal gang that allegedly stole funds from a range of U.S. banks. A complaint unsealed Monday against Maksim Boiko, 29, alleges that he worked with a transnational organized crime group, called QQAAZZ, by converting stolen money into cryptocurrency. The Russian man is “a significant cybercriminal who launders money for other cybercriminals” by giving them access to criminally controlled ban accounts, an FBI affidavit says. U.S. authorities previously indicted five Latvian men for their alleged involvement in the QQAAZZ operation. According to prosecutors, hackers who breached victims’ bank accounts would contact QQAAZZ seeking an account to wire stolen funds as part of a kind of “global, complicit bank drops service.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and a specialist on court filings, first noticed the court records. …

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