French arrest cyber-crime suspect for U.S.

Source: Spencer S. Hsu, The Washington Post.

A founder of one of the world’s most sophisticated Internet sites for trafficking stolen credit card information has been arrested by French police based on a U.S. criminal indictment unsealed Wednesday, the U.S. Secret Service and Justice Department announced.

Vladislav Anatolieviech Horohorin, 27, was seized at the Nice airport Saturday en route from the Mediterranean principality of Monaco to Moscow, where he resides, authorities said.

The Secret Service called Horohorin, known online as “BadB,” one of its five most wanted cyber-criminals in the world. He is part of a “network that has been repeatedly linked to nearly every major intrusion of financial information reported” to international authorities, said Michael Merritt, the Secret Service’s assistant director for investigations.

Horohorin allegedly used online criminal forums such as CarderPlanet, carder.su, and badb.biz to sell stolen credit card data, known as “dumps,” and helped create the first and only fully automated site available to buyers worldwide, according to court documents.

Badb.biz welcomes visitors with a ribald cartoon portraying Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin awarding gold medals to cyber-criminals.”We awaiting you to fight the imperialism of the USA. That way we invest US funds in Russian economy and make it grow bigger.”