If you thought buying cars (and boats) on well known sites such as eBay Motors, Cars.com, AutoTrader.com and bikes on CycleTrader.com was a completely safe affair, and no criminals were posting fake ads to steal your money, you would be wrong. It seems that a lot of this type of cybercrime originates in Eastern Europe, but it's not limited there.
There are many known cases of this kind to have taken place, though most are low-level and don’t attract too much heat. However, the most recent case seems to be the biggest one the authorities have managed to piece together.
It involves six Romanian men and one Albanian, all in their thirties, who were indicted in the US for having collectively extracted some three million dollars from the bank accounts of unlucky prospective buyers looking to utilize the services of one of the above sites between the years 2011 and 2012.
The group was led by Nicolae Popescu, 33, and according to his FBI Wanted poster, he “is wanted for his alleged participation in a sophisticated Internet Fraud scheme where criminal enterprise conspirators, based in Romania and elsewhere in Europe, posted advertisements on Internet auction market sites for merchandise for sale.”
"Using forged documents and phony websites, for years Popescu and his criminal syndicate reached across the ocean to pick the pockets of hard working Americans looking to purchase cars," said Loretta Lynch, a U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, according to a CNN report. She added that the criminals wrongly "thought their distance would insulate them from law enforcement scrutiny ."
The names of all involved were passed on to Interpol, thus beginning their cat and mouse game with authorities. The current whereabouts of those charged are unknown, but it is suspected that Popescu may have “traveled to Europe.”
By Andrei Nedelea
