Ukrainian nationals Yuriy Konovalenko aka Pavel Klikov (29 ys), and Yevhen Kulibaba (33 ys) were jailed for four years and eight months at Croydon Crown Court after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud.
This result is the culmination of a complex and protracted investigation by detectives from the Met's Police Central e-Crime Unit which has seen 13 people jailed for their part in a sophisticated international online fraud that attacked the heart of the UK banking industry.
The investigation, codenamed Operation Lath, focussed on the activities of a group responsible for conducting a systematic and highly sophisticated banking fraud which attacked the banking accounts of hundreds of online customers.
The fraud was perpetrated through the use of banking 'Trojans' to infect the personal computers of bank account holders and subsequently secure funds from them. The malicious software programme was able to capture confidential information, such as usernames, passwords and account numbers. These details were then used to access those accounts without the knowledge of the owners. Funds were then transferred to a large number of receiving accounts controlled by the group.
Kulibaba was the principal within this group of conspirators. He was based in the Ukraine and was responsible for obtaining and allocating accounts to be attacked, and organising the UK based conspirators to set up and operate recipient accounts and remove funds from them.
Konovolenko was Kulibaba's right hand man in the UK. He had a co-ordinating role, organising the establishment and operation of recipient accounts and instructing those with responsibility for organising the removal of the money out of the recipient accounts.
During the investigation the PCeU worked closely with UK banks and colleagues from the Crown Prosecution Service, the FBI and the US Department of Justice.
Report from met.police.uk
