Security News > 2021 > February > 'Money Mule' Operator Gets Seven-Year Prison Sentence
This week the United States sentenced a Ukrainian man to prison for his involvement in a scheme to steal money from the bank accounts of U.S. victims and launder the funds to bank accounts overseas.
The man, Aleksandr Musienko, 38, of Odessa, Ukraine, was extradited to the United States in 2019, after being arrested in South Korea.
During this time, in partnership with Eastern European hackers, he was involved in the theft of more than $3 million from U.S. bank accounts, and proceeded to launder the funds to accounts overseas.
Musienko's associates, the Department of Justice reveals, stole information from U.S. victims, and then leveraged the data to impersonate the victims and trick banks into approving withdrawals from the victims' accounts.
The DoJ reveals that Musienko was involved in the recruitment of money mules, while also supervising and directing them.
In one incident, a total of $296,278 was transferred to two bank accounts controlled by mules, who Musienko instructed to wire the funds to European bank accounts.