MOSCOW, July 24 (RIA Novosti) - Three Russian citizens have been arrested by the US authorities in connection with an international cybercrime ring that stole more than $1.6 million in tickets, USA Today reported Wednesday.
Vadim Polyakov, Nikolay Matveychuk and Sergei Kirin are among seven people around the world that have been indicted in a cybercrime ring that illegally accessed 1,600 user accounts on ticket-selling website StubHub, the newspaper said.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said the crime ring used StubHub members' credit card information and stolen credit cards to purchase and resell tickets.
Allegedly, Vadim Polyakov, 30, and Nikolay Matveychuk, 21, bought more than 3,500 tickets illegally, and then emailed them to three Americans, Daniel Petryszyn, 28, Laurence Brinkmeyer, 29, and Bryan Caputo, 29. The three men resold the tickets and were helped by several other people, including Sergei Kirin, 37, to launder the money via international wire transfers and online money transfer service PayPal.
Polyakov was arrested on July 3 during his vacation near Barcelona. Matveychuk and Kirin remain in Russia, but the US authorities hope they will be brought to justice.
Petryszyn and Caputo were taken into custody in the New York area Wednesday. Brinkmeyer is expected to surrender in the forthcoming days, Vance said.
StubHub’s administration first discovered the breach of more than 1,000 accounts in March 2013. The company subsequently alerted police, who opened an investigation.
