Post by Scumhunter on Dec 22, 2014 10:14:57 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: cnbc.com)
Link to American Greed: The Fugitives episode: www.hulu.com/watch/555569#i0,p10,d0
Fugitive Profile as of Dec. 22nd, 2014 (based on FBI.gov profile):
Aliases: Nicholas Congleton, Valentin Kulakov, Alexey Michinnik, Viktor Rajkov, Arvind Shah, Peter Stojanovich, Tokin Waaran, Fred Teschemacher, David Warren, Aleksandr Zorin
Date(s) of Birth Used: October 5, 1986; February 1, 1980
Place of Birth: Russian Federation
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 170 pounds
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Blue
Sex: Male
Race: White
Nationality: Russian
Remarks: Semenov speaks both Russian and English, although his English may not be that good. He tends to stay close to Russian communities. He may enjoy frequenting casinos and playing poker. He may travel to Las Vegas, Nevada.
Who to call if you've seen him: Local FBI Field Office or embassy or submit a web tip at tips.fbi.gov
As loyal forum members know, although we're primarily an AMW/The Hunt fan forum, the goal of the forum is also to profile all fugitives shown on any national crime shows, or other types of cases shown on national crime shows. It's been a while since we've done an American Greed: The Fugitives case, the finiancial fugitive show on CNBC, so here's another one. P.S. I'm almost done with all the remaining AG fugitives I was able to confirm were still active. All but the about two or three I couldn't confirm were still wanted will be on this website eventually.
Anyway, I'll provide a synopsis of the American Greed episode below:
In 2009, a bunch of students from the former Soviet Bloc show in NYC and open up bank accounts using fake passports. Aren Semenov is arrested after trying this at a Bank of America. However, he still continues to open up bank accounts while sending money overseas. This will come into play later on.
Meanwhile, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the head of their local Fire Department's finance is having trouble logging into her computer.
Her computer is hit with the "Zeus" trojan, which spies on you while you type, recording your log-in credentials and phishing your e-mail, social media, or bank accounts.
The way they get the computer infected is they send what looks like legitimate e-mails, one from Microsoft containing a security update, others from the IRS or FDIC that contain a malicious link or download.
People are targeted in financial roles for getting the stolen money from the hacked credit card accounts out of the country, and are helped by a secondary step, "money mules" in the United States. The mules are mostly students in a work & study program living in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn. Many of them are still young and easily influenced and/or do have debt they need to pay off since they are students. Young and good looking, they didn't raise much suspicion.
The mules are given multiple id's and fake passports and target mainly small-to-mid sized businesses and civic organizations, who wouldn't have the cyber security defense larger companies have, but also still have a significant amount of money.
The head of the Dorchester Fire Department soon learns the bank was trying to reach her. Her account was hacked and 375,000 was withdrawn in small amounts. The small amounts are done on purpose in all of these scams to not raise suspicion. Drives take them to banks all over New York City until all the stolen money is withdrawn and gone.
Many of the mules go online and flaunt their cash. Semenov, an avid poker player, takes trips between Atlantic City and Las Vegas. In total, 70 million dollars are believed to have been stolen as a result of the scheme.
The scheme falls apart thanks in part to two mules who were never paid and became FBI informants, and a University Professor who works with the FBI and teaches his students how to find the missing mules online via their Facebook and social media accounts and other methods (off-topic but I wish this guy would teach me!).
In September 2010, 37 men and women are indicted, with 17 missing.
Eventually, most are located thanks to the FBI and the Professor. A few go back to Russia or Moldova where they can't be extradited, however, Semenov is the one guy left authorities believe is still in the United States.
Semenov initially fled to Las Vegas with two female mules and continued to withdraw tens of thousands dollars of cash. In may of 2011, those two women are arrested but Semenov is still missing.
The Dorchester Fire Department is a lesson this is not a victim-less crime. Although they recover all but 18,000 dollars, which doesn't seem like much, that $18,000 could have brought a lot of new equipment and upgrades and the department had to significantly reduce their budget. Keep in mind, while robbing from the rich is still wrong, these were mid-level companies that couldn't afford the hits as much.
This is why Semenov needs to be caught, as if he participated in this con once, he can do it again. It's said on American Greed the cost of cyber crime exceeds 100 billion a year. A huge step towards fighting it is catching a guy like Semenov. He may be hiding in Russian communities in the U.S., or continuing to gamble in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, etc. so a special alert to anyone who may bump into Semenov as a result of his possible whereabouts.
www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/artem-semenov/view
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