Russian national gets time served in money laundering, cybercrime scheme in Western Pa.

A Russian national was sentenced to time served for his role in an international money laundering scheme on Monday.

Maksim Boiko, 31, pleaded guilty on Dec. 17, 2020, to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The case was prosecuted in Pittsburgh because the funds that were attempted to be stolen were held in banks located in the Western District of Pennsylvania.

He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Marilyn J. Horan to serve an additional two years of supervised released.

His advisory sentencing guideline range was 24 to 30 months incarceration.

Boiko was one of 20 people charged by the Department of Justice of conspiring to launder money stolen from victims of computer fraud in the United States and elsewhere.

He was charged by criminal complaint and arrested in late March 2020 while visiting the United States. He had entered the country through Miami on Jan. 19, 2020, carrying $20,000 in U.S. currency.

According to the complaint filed against him, Boiko was interviewed at the time by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and told the agency that the cash came from investments in Bitcoin and rental properties in Russia.

However, investigators said that Boiko, who went by the online name “gangass,” was conspiring with a group known as QQAAZZ, to launder money stolen by other cybercriminals.

According to an indictment in the case against 14 members of the conspiracy, QQAAZ laundered, or attempted to launder, tens of millions of dollars’ worth of stolen funds from victims of cybercrime since 2016.

As part of the scheme, investigators said that the members of the group opened hundreds of corporate and personal bank accounts throughout the world to receive money from cybercriminals who stole it from victims’ bank accounts. Sometimes, after the money was transferred to QQAAZZ, it was converted to cryptocurrency, which would hide the original source of the funds. QQAAZZ would take a fee of 40 to 50% and then return the balance to the cybercriminals who originally stole it, the government said.

QQAAZZ’s services were advertised on Russian-speaking online cybercriminal forums, prosecutors said.

Among the American victims who had funds stolen, or attempted to be stolen, were a technology company in Windsor, Connecticut; a Jewish Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn, N.Y.; and a medical device manufacturer from York County.

Parallel investigations were also conducted with Europol and other international law enforcement agencies.

The international investigation included searches of 40 different homes in Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, and prosecutions in the U.S., Portugal, Spain and the U.K., the Department of Justice said.

The government said the most arrests occurred in Latvia, and an extensive bitcoin mining operation associated with the group, known as QQAAZ, was seized in Bulgaria.

Boiko’s defense attorney Alek El-Kamhawy asked for time served, noting that his client was never a leader in the organization and served only a minimal role in the conspiracy.

In granting the sentence request, Horan noted that Boiko had a difficult childhood in Russia with financial hardship, that he is diabetic and recently had a child.