Dec 7, 2010
FRAUD ALERT: AMERI GADGETS aka AMERIGADGETS.COM 530-637-8969 is a fake front company. They are part of a very large group of fraudulent websites processing hijacked card data into cash. The card data fraud laundering operation is ran by a multi year eastern European Organized Crime Syndicate.
The fake sites are set up exclusively to process stolen card data and launder the charges into cash. The stolen funds are then wired in bulk from US banks to various foreign banks in Bulgaria, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, and Cyprus, to fraudulently established beneficiary accounts of assorted offshore shell companies. Some of the stolen funds have ended up in the Ukraine. Funds to support the US component of this massive multi year fraud operation have been detected coming into the US in $1,000 increments via Western Union, originating from various cities in the Ukraine.
This Russian headquartered organized crime syndicate recruits cyber-mules either through fake job adds, or by targeting online posted resumes at careerbuilder.com, etc. They masquerade as legitimate companies from various countries in Europe or Asia. The duped recruited cyber-mules, some of which have been lawyers, are then instructed to set up, or use an existing, domestic LLC / Corp, open a business bank account, and obtain merchant gateway processing services specifically through authorize.net, a division of Cybersource, now owned by Visa. This Organized Crime Syndicate has used this vector exclusively for almost a decade to hijack many hundreds of millions of dollars from consumers.
The Organized Crime syndicate manages the associated website and uses the services set up by the cyber-mules to launder millions of hijacked credit cards into cash. The cyber-mule is then instructed to wire the fraud proceeds out of the country weekly from the US business/merchant bank accounts. Every single charge processed via these fake websites are from stolen card data. It is estimated that they may now process up to 20 million compromised card accounts a year, and may have 300 or more active fraud websites operating at any given time.
If you receive a charge from one of these fraud entities, it is imperative that you report the charge as FRAUDULENT, and cancel and replace the card. They will keep charging it, also, CHECK YOUR PRIOR STATEMENTS for small fraud charges that you may have missed. The fraudulent card data charges are pumped into the authorize.net processing system using a sophisticated automated script which utilizes a bot proxy network of compromised US computers, to make it appear as if the eastern European data transactions are originating from US IP addresses. In a few cases the fraud victim's bank has insisted that the charge was legitimate and forced them to pay it.
Please file a report at IC3: http://www.ic3.gov/complaint
Also, file a report at the FTC: http://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov
[Reference case, FTC File No. 0923051 which contains serious errors and conclusions regarding the size and extent of this massive and still ongoing card fraud laundering operation]
AMERI GADGETS aka AMERIGADGETS.COM 530-637-8969, whose US based cyber-mule and corresponding business bank and merchant acquirer account may be located in California, is specifically addressed in a post on this page:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... er=amerigadgets
The complete story of this long running Orgamized Criminal organization is documented starting here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... igitalAge-Pluto
and is now over 1,000 posts and 50 pages long.