(Seattle, WA) A 10-year cyber investigation led by the U.S. Secret Service and Seattle Police Department,
culminated today in Seattle federal court with the sentencing of Roman Seleznev (AKA“Track2”). Seleznev,
32, of Vladivostok, Russia, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Jones to 27 years in federal
prison related to his scheme to hack into point-of-sale computers to steal and sell credit card numbers on
criminal carding websites. Seleznev was convicted by a jury in August, 2016, on a 38-count indictment
following an eight-day trial.
This investigation began nearly a decade ago with the identification of a prominent cybercriminal, who at the
time, was only know by an online nick-name on Russian speaking cybercrime forums. Over time, the
investigation revealed that this individual was Roman Seleznev. Separately, in 2008, Secret Service Electronic
Crimes Task Force Officers from the Seattle Police Department responded to a number of network intrusions
at Seattle based merchants. Through the analysis of hacked computers and various malware that was
designed to steal credit card information; servers operated in Russia by Seleznev were also discovered.
These servers were used to install the malware used to facilitate this crime.
“This case is yet another example that demonstrates the Secret Service is fully committed to protecting our
nation’s critical financial infrastructure and fulfilling an important part of our integrated mission,” said Secret
Service Assistant Director Kenneth Jenkins. “It is our goal to continue to utilize our Electronic Crimes Task
Force model to promote domestic and international law enforcement partnerships to respond, confront, and
suppress the growth of international cyber-crime.”
“This investigation included extraordinary support and expertise from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the
Western District of Washington, the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section
and Detectives from the Seattle Police Department,” said Special Agent in Charge Robert Kierstead of the
Seattle Field Office. “The computer forensic and network intrusion training that the Secret Service is able to
provide to state and local law enforcement, prosecutors and judges at the National Computer Forensics
Institute (NCFI) in Hoover, AL, significantly enhances our ability to successfully investigate these
transnational organized crime groups.”
Once Seleznev retrieved the stolen credit card data from the point-of-sale terminals, he would sell the
information on various payment card trafficking websites that were operated by him and his co-conspirators.
At their height, these illicit carding websites made Seleznev one of the most prolific traffickers of stolen credit
card information in the world. Operators of popular “carding” websites have been known to gross as much as
half-a-million U.S. dollars per month in sales. While vacationing in the Maldives, Seleznev was finally taken
into custody in July, 2014. At the time, his laptop contained more than 1.7 million stolen credit card numbers
and communications with a variety of Russian co-conspirators. In total, Seleznev was tied to the intrusion of
more than 3,700 victim merchants and financial institutions with a loss of more than $169 million dollars.
The U.S. Secret Service has taken a lead role in mitigating the threat of financial crimes since the agency’s
inception in 1865. As technology has evolved, the scope of the U.S. Secret Service’s mission has expanded
from its original counterfeit currency investigations to also include emerging financial, electronic, and cybercrimes.
As a component agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service has
established successful partnerships in both the law enforcement and business communities – across the
country and around the world – in order to effectively combat financial crimes.