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Stop us if you've heard this one: Russian hacker thrown in US slammer for $59m bank fraud

More punishment on the menu for Roman Seleznev

A Russian hacker already facing a lengthy prison stay in the US has been sent down for another 14 years for heading up an "organized cybercrime ring" that racked up $59m in damages across America.

Roman Valeryevich Seleznev, aka Track2, the 33-year-old son of a Russian MP, was sentenced after being convicted of one count each of racketeering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Though each charge carries a 168 month sentence, Seleznev will serve the terms concurrently along with a 27-year stretch he was given in April for separate fraud charges.

He will also have to pay restitution of $50,893,166.35 and $2,178,349 for the two latest convictions, this time in the courts of the Northern District of Georgia and the District of Nevada.

The sentencing comes after Seleznev copped to helping run an identity theft and credit card fraud ring through the Carder.su site. Seleznev and others were believed to have racked up more than $59m from trafficking in stolen identities and credit cards. They also conspired to hack and defraud credit card companies and payment processors.

"His automated website allowed members to log into and purchase stolen credit card account data," US prosecutors said of Seleznev on Thursday.

"The defendant’s website had a simple interface that allowed members to search for the particular type of credit card information they wanted to buy, add the number of accounts they wished to purchase to their 'shopping cart' and upon check out, download the purchased credit card information."

While most of the stolen card numbers were resold for about $20 apiece, others were used in the infamous 2008 ATM hijack that resulted in a total of $9.4m in cash being pulled from more than 2,100 cash machines around the world.

Seleznev was among the key figures nabbed in the Operation Open Market, a year-long effort by multiple law enforcement agencies in the US government that ended up netting 55 arrests and 33 convictions so far.

These won't be the last charges Seleznev faces, either. The US DoJ notes that the convicted fraudster is also the defendant in another pending case being heard in the Western Washington district court. ®

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