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

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

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

“Greed knows no bounds, but justice knows no bounds,” 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 conspiracy to commit wire fraud, access device fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, court records show.

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

The indictment does not reveal where the other transactions took place or how many victims were involved.

Basovych remained in federal custody after his court appearance.

Victims in Charlotte and Mooresville

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

The indictment lists five victims from Charlotte and one from Mooresville, but does not name them.

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

The indictment does not name the co-conspirators or detail how the thieves accessed the victims’ personally identifiable information and financial information.

“Today’s world does not allow us to physically lock our identities in a safe,” Robert DeWitt, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Charlotte division, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this vulnerability gave cybercriminals the opportunity to exploit and profit from stolen identities.

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

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

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