Russian Lawmaker"s Son Convicted in $169 million Hacking Scheme

Following an eight-day trial in the US, a federal judge convicted Roman Valerevich Seleznev, the son of ultra-nationalist Russian Liberal Democratic Party MP Valery Seleznev, of 38 counts of hacking, the US Department of Justice announced.

Through his hacking scheme, the 32-year-old Russian, also known as Track2, made off with over $169 million from 3,700 financial institutions and stole 29 million US credit cards. Many of the businesses he attacked went bankrupt.

Convictions include “10 counts of wire fraud, eight counts of intentional damage to a protected computer, nine counts of obtaining information from a protected computer, nine counts of possession of 15 or more unauthorized access devices and two counts of aggravated identity theft.”

From a server in Russia, Seleznev breached point-of-sales computers of small businesses for four years and infected them with malware. He would then steal card numbers to sell to organized crime.

He was captured in the Maldives in July 2014 and faces between 4 and 34 years in prison. His sentence is to be announced in December.