'BadB' Now Charged In RBS WorldPay ATM Case

A Russian man recently arrested for allegedly spearheading a global online identity theft trafficking operation has now also been charged in the RBS WorldPay ATM case, where cloned cards were used to steal nearly $10 million in less than 12 hours.

Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin -- aka "BadB" -- was added to a list of eight Eastern European defendants who were charged in the case late last year, according to a report in Wired. Horohorin, who was arrested in France earlier this month for 2009 charges of access-device fraud and aggravated identity theft, is considered one of the most prolific sellers of pilfered card information in the world. He has citizenship in

In an updated indictment, Horohorin is charged with wire fraud and access-device fraud for his alleged role in the crime ring's cashing out at ATM machines around the globe with the phony, cloned debit cards during November of 2008. "Horohorin was a casher who fraudulently withdrew RBSW funds from ATMs in or around Moscow, Russia," the U.S. District Court of Georgia Atlanta Division indictment says.

The RBS WorldPay case started with the attackers hacking the encryption used by Atlanta-based RBS WorldPay to secure customer data on payroll debit cards. Some companies use payroll debit cards to pay their employees, which allows employees to withdraw their salaries from an ATM.

After the attackers had compromised the card-processing system's encryption, they raised the account limits on the compromised accounts and provided their network of "cashers" with counterfeit payroll debit cards that then were used to withdraw some $9.5 million from 2,100 ATMs nearly 280 cities worldwide, including those in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, and Canada. The $9 million loss occurred within a span of less than 12 hours.

Cashers were allowed to keep 30- to 40 percent of the stolen money. According to the indictment, the cloned payroll debit card account number put in Horohorin's name had withdrawn over $125,000 from the ATMs.

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