Australian man among those arrested in Infraud takedown

A US federal indictment unsealed overnight charged 36 people for their alleged roles running the Infraud online forum.

In addition to 13 arrests in the US, alleged Infraud members were arrested in six countries.

An Australian man — Edgar Rojas (also known as “Guapo,” “Guapo1988,” and “Onlyshop” according to the indictment) — was among those arrested.

Infraud featured vendors that offered stolen ID, financial and banking information, as well as malware and other illicit goods, the Department of Justice said.

It provided an escrow service facilitating transactions using digital currencies including Liberty Reserve, Bitcoin, Perfect Money and WebMoney.

As of March 2017, there were 10,901 registered members of the site, whose slogan was “In Fraud We Trust”, the US Department of Justice said.

The indictment alleges that the ‘Infraud Organization’ was created in October 2010 by Svyatoslav Bondarenko of Ukraine.

The takedown of Infraud — dubbed Operation Shadow Web — was an international effort and the Australian Federal Police was among the law enforcement agencies thanked by the Department of Justice for their role.

“Today’s indictment and arrests mark one of the largest cyberfraud enterprise prosecutions ever undertaken by the Department of Justice,” said US Acting Assistant Attorney General Cronan.

“As alleged in the indictment, Infraud operated like a business to facilitate cyberfraud on a global scale.”

Infraud members were allegedly responsible for losses exceeding US$530 to consumers and businesses. The Indictment claims that they intended to cause losses exceeding US$2.2 billion.