The son of a Russian MP has pleaded guilty to being part of a $50million cyber-crime racket.
33-year-old Roman Seleznev, has admitted to being part of an online criminal marketplace called Carder.su which specialized in selling stolen credit cards details and identify theft.
He was found guilty, by a Seattle jury in 2016, of perpetrating a scheme that prosecutors said involved hacking into point-of-sale computers to steal credit card numbers and caused $US170 million in losses to US firms.
Seleznev, who has already been sentenced to 27 years in prison by Judge Richard A Jones at a Federal High Court in Washington for breaking into US businesses to steal credit card information which he subsequently sold on to others to commit frauds, has now been ordered to pay $170m in damages.
He was selling such a large volume of card details he created an automated website allowing customers to log in and search for the particular type of card information they wanted to buy.
Seleznev is the son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of the Russian parliament.
His father had accused Washington of abducting his son when he was arrested by US Secret Service agents in the Maldives in 2014.
Seleznev’s lawyer, Igor Litvak, said while admitting the latest charges, his client plans to appeal his Washington conviction.
“We still feel the way he was brought to the U.S. was illegal. He was basically kidnapped.” Mr Litvak said
Carder.su was targeted by law enforcement agencies in Operation Open Market, which has charged 55 individuals with involvement in the cyber crime ring.
Of those charged, 33 have been convicted while the others are either fugitives or pending trial.