An Estonian national who admitted stealing personal information and creating fake identification documents has been sentenced to prison, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) announced on Wednesday.
According to the agency, 42-year-old Andrei Sergejev, known online as “tetereff,” was arrested in March 2012 at his home in Walthamstow, a suburban district of east London. He pleaded guilty last month to 12 charges of making an article used in fraud, and two counts related to a small quantity of cannabis that was found at his house at the time of the arrest.
Investigators uncovered utility bills, bank statement and other compromised financial data which the man supposedly used to create fake IDs. Sergejev’s services were used by other criminals for financial fraud and for international travel, the NCA said. A large number of financial and identity documents in different names were found in the Estonian man’s home.
Sergejev, who has been named by the NCA a “prolific cyber fraudster,” has been sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for the cannabis and “making an article used in fraud” charges. He has also been given a two-year sentence for possession of articles used in fraud, which he will serve concurrently.
“Once again, a criminal has found that operating online under an assumed name was not enough to escape the attentions of law enforcement. Sergejev was facilitating fraud on a significant scale, and this type of criminality comes at a significant cost to businesses and individuals in the UK.
The National Crime Agency continues its efforts to drive down the threat from online crime,” stated Steve Pye, a representative of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit.
The NCA has been involved in a number of recent operations against cybercriminals. Last month, following an investigation carried out by the agency, a 17-year-old teen was charged for being involved in the massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack launched against Spamhaus in March 2013. Earlier in July, the NCA also took part in the international law enforcement operation targeting the infrastructure used by the financial malware known as Shylock
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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