Category Archives: Yevgeniy Timchenko

Two Methbot suspects set to plead guilty as alleged ringleader maintains his innocence

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Two men accused of participating in the multimillion-dollar Methbot digital-advertising fraud scheme are scheduled to plead guilty in the coming days, according to court filings from the Eastern District of New York. Sergey Ovysannikov and Yevgeniy Timchenko, both originally from Kazakhstan, are scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn on Sept. 24 and Sept. 25, respectively, to enter plea agreements before Judge Steven M. Gold. Both men initially pleaded not guilty after they were extradited to the U.S. earlier this year. A third man, Methbot’s alleged ringleader, Aleksandr Zhukov, has promised to fight the charges against him. Prosecutors say the operation relied on cybercriminal techniques to defraud companies out of roughly $29 million. Few details of the plea agreements were immediately available. Arkady Bukh, defense counsel for Ovysannikov, declined to say to which counts his client intends to plead guilty. Attorneys for Timchenko did not respond Friday to phone […]

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Third suspect in Methbot, 3ve case to plead not guilty after extradition from Malaysia

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A Kazakh national accused of helping coordinate an advertising fraud scheme that fleeced companies out of tens of millions of dollars will plead not guilty when he arrives in the U.S. to stand trial, his lawyer told CyberScoop. Sergey Ovsyannikov is scheduled to be extradited to the U.S. in the coming weeks, a Kazakh consulate official told CyberScoop last week. When Ovsyannikov arrives in court, he will plead not guilty to charges that he led the 3ve botnet-based scheme to falsify billions of advertisements, costing businesses $29 million between December 2015 and October 2018, according to defense attorney Arkady Bukh. “At the arraignment, the plea will be entered as not guilty,” Bukh said. “Then we’ll go over the [evidence] and…we’ll see if the government is in a position to prove any guilt.” His presence in court will mark the third time an accused member of the 3ve/Methbot group was extradited […]

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Complex court battle for Methbot, 3ve cybercrime suspects only is getting started

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Alleged perpetrators of the Methbot and 3ve cybercrime rings have started to arrive in the U.S. to face accusations that they orchestrated a broad conspiracy to defraud advertisers for millions of dollars. Yevgeniy Timchenko, a 30-year-old citizen of Kazakhstan, appeared Wednesday in federal district court in Brooklyn alongside Aleksandr Zhukov, a Russian national, in a short status hearing. Both men had bald heads with facial hair and stood before the judge in beige jumpsuits. Lawyers asked for more time to review discovery materials in a case where the evidence is “extremely voluminous” and comes in multiple languages, including Russian and Bulgarian. The Department of Justice has linked Timchenko to 3ve and Zhukov to Methbot, two distinct ad-fraud operations outlined in the same indictment unsealed in November. Both groups used botnet-based schemes to boost web traffic numbers in plots to collect money from legitimate advertising companies lured into investing in seemingly trustworthy businesses. Members of Methbot and 3ve (pronounced “eve”), while working in different […]

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