In 1994, in the American firm Citibank, large sums of money started mysteriously disappearing from clients' accounts. A resultant investigation revealed that a computer located in Russia was used to break into the Citibank systems. The idea of robbing banks from a distance revolutionized the criminal world. In this series, we will tell you about Russian hackers' very first crimes, after which the whole world started talking about them.
By 2001, cybercrime in the Russian-language world had reached such levels that a platform was needed where interested parties could exchange information and find associates. That place became the legendary forum CarderPlanet - the planet for carders. Here came together people who had damaged the US economy to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The fate of each of the forum moderators is worthy of its own adventure story - not for nothing did they call themselves mafia-style dons. We'll tell you about some of them in the next two episodes.
The FBI and secret service had already long kept a close eye on what was happening on the carderplanet forum. By 2004, several undercover agents were simultaneously working on the site. After the arrest of one of the American buyers of stolen cards, Richard LaTulip assigned himself a virtual identity - no one suspected that a special agent of the US secret service, not a cybercriminal, is now hiding under the pseudonym SurfRider.