Category Archives: Maksim Boiko

Two members of QQAAZZ, which laundered funds from cybercrime, plead guilty

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Two individuals involved with laundering funds from U.S. victims of cybercrime pleaded guilty to their role in a transnational organization that relied in part on hacking to defraud victims out of millions of dollars, the Justice Department announced Friday. The defendants, Arturs Zaharevics and Aleksejs Trofimovics, are just two of 20 indiviuals charged by the U.S. government with involvement with QQAAZZ, a European-based crime group that provided cash and cryptocurrency laundering for cybercriminals. U.S. and European authorities launched a major crackdown on the group last fall, resulting in indictments against 14 members of the criminal organization. QQAAZZ  allegedly laundered or attempted to launder tens of millions of dollars’ worth of funds stolen from cybercrime victims across 16 countries. Trofimovics opened thirteen corporate bank accounts in Portugal under a shell company to help move money for cybercriminals. Zaharevics, who was extradited from the United Kingdom in April, also set up foreign […]

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Maksim Boiko, an accused money launderer and part-time rapper, to plead not guilty

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A Russian man caught carrying $20,000 in cash through the Miami airport earlier this year will plead not guilty to laundering money on behalf of a transnational cybercriminal organization, his attorney said Friday. An FBI complaint unsealed in March charges that Maksim Boiko, 29, was a “significant cybercriminal” who converted stolen money into cryptocurrency for a group called QQAAZZ. Boiko was taken into custody in Florida earlier this year, though he’s due to be arraigned via teleconference in the Western District of Pennsylvania soon, defense attorney Arkady Bukh told CyberScoop. “My client will plead not guilty,” he said. Boiko, known as “gangass” among other accused cybercriminals, was arrested in March at a Miami condominium on March 28 after entering the U.S. with his wife through the Miami airport in January. An FBI complaint unsealed the next day included pictures of Boiko driving a BMW with bundles of U.S. cash on […]

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FBI accuses Russian man of laundering money for a transnational cybercrime network

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FBI agents have arrested a Russian citizen accused of laundering money for a cybercriminal gang that allegedly stole funds from a range of U.S. banks. A complaint unsealed Monday against Maksim Boiko, 29, alleges that he worked with a transnational organized crime group, called QQAAZZ, by converting stolen money into cryptocurrency. The Russian man is “a significant cybercriminal who launders money for other cybercriminals” by giving them access to criminally controlled ban accounts, an FBI affidavit says. U.S. authorities previously indicted five Latvian men for their alleged involvement in the QQAAZZ operation. According to prosecutors, hackers who breached victims’ bank accounts would contact QQAAZZ seeking an account to wire stolen funds as part of a kind of “global, complicit bank drops service.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and a specialist on court filings, first noticed the court records. […]

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