The U.S. Department of Justice has been busy with its war on hacking.

Today it released details about three Ukrainian men who are alleged to be behind the notorious Fin7 credit card hacking gang. Also, a judge sentenced a key member of the defunct darknet marketplace AlphaBay.

With Fin7, Justice released previously sealed indictments Wednesday against Dmytro Federov, 44; Fedir Hladyr, 33; and Andrii Kolpakov, 30, all Ukrainian nationals. The department alleges they hacked into “thousands of computer systems and stole millions of customer credit and debit card numbers, which the group used or sold for profit.”

The suspects are alleged to have targeted companies across 47 states and the District of Columbia to steal “more than 15 million customer card records,” mostly “in the restaurant, gaming and hospitality industries.”

The Department said Hladyr is currently in custody in Seattle, while Fedorov and Kolpakov are in custody in Poland and Spain, respectively, awaiting extradition hearings.

Andrei Barysevich, director of advanced collection at Recorded Future Inc., told SiliconANGLE that for nearly four years, the Fin7 gang has been the major supplier of stolen payment card data to criminals in the dark web, usually via compromised point-of-sale devices and then sold through various marketplaces.

“Such data can then be encoded onto any plastic magstripe card, allowing criminals to make in-person purchases,” he said. “Our analysis indicates that a single megabreach could have earned criminals up to $10 million if sold in bulk.”

He added that it’s not yet clear if the arrested individuals were involved in intrusion operations or were responsible for money laundering of illicit profits. “However, given the timing, I am very confident that the indicted individuals were associated with the Carbanak mastermind who was arrested in Spain in March of this year,” he said. “The full effect of the latest development remains to be seen, but it is evident that the authorities are getting closer to the full dismantlement of the group.“

In Atlanta, Georgia, a federal court judge sentenced a man who promoted an “international criminal online marketplace” — AlphaBay — and assisted people using it for illicit transactions to nearly four years in federal prison.

Ronald L. Wheeler III of Streamwood, Illinois, stood accused of working for the illicit marketplace for May 2015. Under the name of Trappy Pandora, he helped traffic in personal information, using it without authorization to obtain money, goods and services.

AlphaBay disappeared from the darknet in July 2017 in what was first believed to be a scam. But it was later revealed to have become the subject of a global police operation. Launched in December 2014 and ranked by researchers as the largest illegal-goods market online by October 2015, AlphaBay was often referred to as the new Silk Road, an earlier darknet market that dominated the scene before it was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2013.

Along with a three-year, 10-month sentence, Streamwood was ordered to forfeit $27,562 in cash found in his home and 13.97 bitcoins currently worth a total of more than $100,000.

Image: U.S. Department of Justice