Russian hackers steal over $500,000 from Turkish banks

Two un-named hackers from the Russian city of Togliatti on the Volga River stole over $500,000 over a period of two years from bank accounts in Turkey, Interior Ministry investigators said Monday.

The two men purchased a dedicated server with remote access to a desktop hosted in a U.S. data center, and a special application capable of infecting banking computers in Turkey with a Trojan virus to obtain information on bank accounts, investigators said. One of the hackers has been arrested, and the other is on a federal wanted list.

After processing the obtained information, the hackers transferred money to accounts of Turkish collaborators, who in turn cashed the money in and later transferred it to Togliatti via Western Union.

The Interior Ministry's investigation committee said there were a total of 265 registered money transfers totaling $508,000 between February 2005 and April 2007.

One of the men, arrested in June this year on fraud charges, is being held in a pre-trial detention center in the Samara Region. - RIA Novsoti

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