Six men have been indicted today for involvement in an international cybercrime ring that defrauded online ticket reseller StubHub of approximately $1.6 million.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. said the criminal charges included money laundering, identity theft, criminal possession of stolen property, and grand larceny.

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Among those charged were Vadim Polyakov, 30, from Russia and Nikolay Matveychuk, 21, from New York. Both men used stolen StubHub user account information and credit card numbers to purchase more than 3,500 fraudulent e-tickets.

Investigators believe that the e-tickets were sent to a group of individuals in New Jersey and New York for reselling hours before the actual concert events, such as those featuring Elton John, Marc Anthony, Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z.

The StubHub scheme was discovered to have victimized more than 1,600 StubHub users and credit card holders. Investigations reveal that StubHub, an eBay subsidiary that lets customers buy and sell e-tickets to entertainment events, discovered the fraudulent charges in March 2013.

The company immediately sought for an investigation, which later revealed more than 1,600 illegally accessed accounts. The hackers used preexisting credit card information of legitimate StubHub users for unauthorized transactions.

StubHub spokesman Glenn Lehrman believes that cyber thieves did not break through the website's security. Instead, they obtained users' login and password information from data breaches at other websites, or through malware sent to the customers' computers.

This incident prompted StubHub to implement additional security to avoid further private information hijacking. Throughout the investigations, the company labeled these intrusions as the "Account Take-Over" fraud.

However, the new security protocols were circumvented by the hackers using new credit card data stolen from other unreported victims instead of the information from the original victims.  

Examination of the receipts and transaction records of the compromised accounts helped investigators trace the exchanges to internet protocol addresses, bank accounts, Paypal accounts and other financial accounts used and controlled by the indicted persons.

"Cybercriminals know no boundaries - they do not respect international borders or laws. Today's arrests and indictment connect a global network of hackers, identity thieves, and money-launderers who victimized countless individuals in New York and elsewhere," said Vance.

He lauded the coordinated actions of law enforcement officials in New York, New Jersey, the United Kingdom, and Canada, which brought about the successful arrests.

TagsStubHub, cybercrime, Cyberthieves, Cyrus R. Vance