Information for Victims in Large Cases
U.S. v. Jonathan Donohue
Jonathan Donohue controlled two websites from which he sold Distributed Denial of Service (“DDOS”) attacks. From January 10, 2017 through June 22, 2017, Donohue launched 179,951 DDOS attacks against 78,214 unique IP addresses.
U.S. v. Morris Sutton
Morris Sutton engaged in a conspiracy to fix prices for DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs sold through the Amazon Marketplace platform to customers located throughout the United States. The charged conspiracy began at least as early as November 2017 and continued to on or about October 29, 2019.
United States v. MATJAZ SKORJANC, FLORENCIO CARRO RUIZ, MENTOR LENIQI, And THOMAS KENNEDY MCCORMICK
In December, 2018, the defendant McCormick, an American, and three others were charged by indictment with a racketeering conspiracy to develop and distribute malware through the major computer hacking forum known as Darkode. Arrest warrants are still outstanding for Skorjanc, a Slovenian national, Mentor Leneqi, a Serbian, and Florencio Ruiz, a Spaniard. The other foreign countries have declined to extradite the other three defendants to the U.S. for prosecution, but they remain fugitives from justice here in the United States.
Thomas McCormick, pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. The racketeering conspiracy charge includes conspiracy to commit bank, wire, and access device fraud, identity theft, hacking, and extortion.
U.S. v. Glenn Arcaro; 21-CR-02542-TWR
This case charges the defendant of participating in a massive conspiracy involving BitConnect, a cryptocurrency investment scheme, which defrauded investors from the Unites States and abroad of over $2 billion. The defendant admitted that he and others conspired to mislead investors about BitConnect’s purported technology, known as the “BitConnect Trading Bot” and “Volatility Software,” as being able to generate substantial profits and guaranteed returns by using investors’ money to trade on the volatility of cryptocurrency exchange markets. The BitConnect scheme is believed to be the largest cryptocurrency fraud ever charged criminally. According to the Information, these wire fraud crimes were committed in and around the Southern District of California, across the United States, and internationally.
United States v. Shuklin et al.
A grand jury charged the defendants with participating in a criminal enterprise that operated thirteen different moving companies in multiple locations through the United States. The criminal enterprise enriched itself by defrauding, extorting, and stealing from customers who hired the moving companies to move their household goods. Specifically, the criminal enterprise lied to customers about the company's experience and record, provided low binding estimates to secure moving jobs, loaded the customers' household goods into moving trucks, and then illegally demanded money above the binding estimate based on fraudulent calculations of space used by the goods. Customers were required to pay falsely inflated prices to retrieve their possessions and, in some cases, never received their possessions at all. The criminal enterprise protected and perpetuated itself by concealing and misrepresenting the owners, operators, employees, and operations of their moving companies. This fraud was accomplished through a number of different means, including the preparation and submission to federal regulators and to third-party companies of documents containing false information and the use of fake drivers' licenses for the purported owners of the moving companies to further the criminal enterprise.
US v. Wilhan Martono (CityXGuide)
In June 2020, the website cityxguide.com (“CityXGuide”)—a leading source of online advertisements for prostitution and sex trafficking—was seized by Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a warrant. Wilhan Martono, the creator, owner, and operator of CityXGuide, was charged in a 28-count indictment with promotion of prostitution and reckless disregard of sex trafficking, interstate racketeering conspiracy (facilitating prostitution), interstate transportation in aid of racketeering (facilitating prostitution), and money laundering. In August 2021, Martono pled guilty to Promotion and Facilitation of Prostitution and Reckless Disregard of Sex Trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2421A and Conspiracy to Engage in Interstate and Foreign Travel and Transportation In Aid of Racketeering Enterprises in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.
Martono created, owned, and operated a network of websites, including CityXGuide, that posted hundreds of thousands of prostitution advertisements in locations across the United States and around the world. CityXGuide allowed pimps, prostitutes, and brothels to post and pay for advertisements that featured an explicit list of “intimate activities,” along with nude or partially nude photographs, a physical description, work hours, methods of payment, and contact information for the female being advertised.
Martono purchased the domain names of CityXGuide and its related websites, purchased and maintained the servers that hosted the websites, and purchased the server space, server equipment, and blocks of Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses—including more than 95 unique IP addresses—to operate the websites.
United States v. Chirag Choksi et al.
Conspirators at an Indian call center used automated, previously recorded calls, commonly referred to as “robocalls,” to initiate contact with victims. These robocalls usually contained messages designed to create a sense of urgency with the call recipient, including threats of serious legal problems, usually criminal in nature, that required immediate action in order to avoid drastic consequences, including arrest and/or significant financial penalties. Victims would be instructed to stay on the line or to call a particular number. Eventually victims would speak with one or more live persons, who used a variety of scripts incorporating different fraud schemes to persuade victims to send money via wire money transfer and/or the mail or private interstate commercial carrier shipments.
U.S. v. David Camp
David Camp engaged in a conspiracy to fix prices for DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs sold through the Amazon Marketplace platform to customers located throughout the United States. The charged conspiracy began at least as early as May 2018 and continued to on or about October 29, 2019.
U.S. v. Norman W. Fries, Inc., d/b/a Claxton Poultry Farms
Norman W. Fries, Inc., d/b/a Claxton Poultry Farms engaged in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products. The charged conspiracy began at least as early as 2012 and continued at least until early 2019.
United States v. Alla Witte
Alla Witte is charged in 19 counts of a 47-count indictment, which accuses her of participating in a criminal organization referred to as the “Trickbot Group,” which deployed the Trickbot malware. The indictment alleges that beginning in November of 2015, Witte and her co-conspirators allegedly worked together to infect victim computers with the Trickbot malware designed to capture online banking login credentials and harvest other personal information, including credit card numbers, emails, passwords, dates of birth, social security numbers and addresses. Witte and others also allegedly captured login credentials and other stolen personal information to gain access to online bank accounts, execute unauthorized electronic funds transfers and launder the money through U.S. and foreign beneficiary accounts.
The Trickbot Group operated in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Suriname, and primarily targeted victim computers belonging to businesses, entities, and individuals, including those in the Northern District of Ohio and elsewhere in the United States. Targets included hospitals, schools, public utilities, and governments.
US v. Kristijan Krstic et al.
According to the indictment, the defendants were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They allegedly helped create and market more than 20 fraudulent investing platforms, including Options Giants, Banking Option, Aeon Options, Option Riders, Bancde Options, Instant Options, Fast Options, Elite Options, Start Options, Crypto Trading World, Dragon Mining, Trinity Mining, BTC Mining Factory, Bitcoin Trading World, BTC Trader Online, BTC Falcon, Perpetual Energy, Hedger Tech, Go Solar Mining, Perfect-Options, and others.
United States vs. Richard Smith
On March 29, 2021, a federal grand jury sitting in New Haven, Connecticut returned an indictment charging Smith with receipt and possession of child pornography. If convicted of the charges, Smith faces a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum term of imprisonment of 40 years. Smith is currently detained pending trial, which is scheduled for June 3, 2021 before Judge Jeffrey Meyer in New Haven.