Bulgarians Siphoned Millions from US Bank Accounts

Crime | January 20, 2008, Sunday // 00:00
Bulgaria: Bulgarians Siphoned Millions from US Bank Accounts The leader of the gang Issa Ahmed, 26, dubbed "The Hacker", and two of his accomplices were arrested in the Black Sea port of Varna, local police announced. Photo by Kameliya Atanasova (Sofia Photo Agency)

A criminal gang, which is suspected of siphoning USD 4 M from US credit cards and bank accounts, has been busted in the town of Varna. The raid was carried out jointly by the Bulgarian police and Secret Service officers.

The leader of the gang Issa Ahmed, 26, dubbed "The Hacker", and two of his accomplices were arrested in the Black Sea port of Varna, local police announced on Sunday.

The criminal ring included four men, who managed the operations on the territory of the United States, and another ten in Bulgaria.

Issa Ahmed, an ethnic Turk, who has been described by a witness as "a crazy genius", has never visited the United States.

At the beginning of 2006 the gang started by siphoning an average of USD 20 from hundreds of cards and transferring the money to virtual bank accounts of Bulgarian citizens. The money was then brought back to the US only to be withdrawn by Bulgarians living there and transferred to Bulgaria.

At the end of 2006 the criminals switched for another scheme, withdrawing sums as huge as USD 100 000.

The crime gang even registered detective bureaux in the United Sates, thus gaining in-depth knowledge and access to the database of institutions and banks.

The mastermind of the scheme said he availed himself of an Internet forum, whose USD 50,000 membership fee gave him access to skimmed account details from consumers' genuine debit, credit cards, bank accounts.

Police says the collected evidence proves the siphoning of USD 400,000, but the crime gang is suspected to have netted ten times that sum.

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