In the News

Sharing threat information among peers benefits all parties through awareness, informed decision making, and increased resilience.  The NCFTA sharing model includes responsible sharing with and support of law enforcement to enable authorities to disrupt cyber-criminal actors and groups wherever they may be. This is a big reason why we do what we do; to impose a consequence on those who leverage the internet to criminally benefit themselves or others.

Included below are press releases pertaining to successful law enforcement investigations and other newsworthy items in which the NCFTA or NCFTA community played a supporting role.

Congratulations to those law enforcement agencies, case agents, and prosecutors who have invested countless hours while seeking justice for exploited victims.

August 29, 2023

Qakbot Malware Disrupted in International Cyber Takedown

Qakbot malware infected more than 700,000 victim computers, facilitated ransomware deployments, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. The action represents the largest U.S.-led financial and technical disruption of a botnet infrastructure leveraged by cybercriminals to commit ransomware, financial fraud, and other cyber-enabled criminal activity.

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July 24, 2023

SoCal Skimmer Gets Prison for Million-Dollar Financial Identity Theft Scheme

A Los Angeles resident was sentenced to 41 months in prison for repeatedly installing at least 54 skimming devices at gas pumps throughout Southern California. Haykaz Mansuryan is the third co-conspirator in this scheme to be sentenced. Two additional defendants are presently set for a jury trial. One defendant, Petros Armutyan, remains a fugitive. The remaining 3 defendants are pending sentencing.

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July 5, 2023

Suspected key figure of notorious cybercrime group arrested in joint operation

Operation Nervone has dealt a significant blow to the OPERA1ER group. Over the last four years, a highly-organized criminal organization has targeted financial institutions and mobile banking services with malware, phishing campaigns and large-scale Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams. Known as OPERA1ER, with aliases such as NX$M$, DESKTOP Group and Common Raven, the group is believed to have stolen an estimated USD 11 million - potentially as much as 30 million - in more than 30 attacks across 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

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June 14, 2023

Music Platforms Unite To Form Industry-Wide Anti-Fraud Alliance, "Music Fights Fraud"

Founding Members Include Digital Music Companies CD Baby and its parent company Downtown, TuneCore and its parent company Believe, DistroKid, UnitedMasters, Symphonic, EMPIRE, and Vydia as well as Digital Service Providers Spotify and Amazon Music. The National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance - a neutral third party - will operationalize protocol for the centralized prevention of cross-platform streaming fraud, currently costing the industry hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

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June 14, 2023

Tackling streaming fraud is becoming a key objective for the music business

Members of the Music Fights Fraud alliance say that they will provide “greater cross-platform collaboration and data sharing” in coordination with a third party, the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), a nonprofit partnership between private organizations, government, and academia.

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June 6, 2023

CEO of Dozens of Companies Pleads Guilty to Massive Scheme to Traffic in Fraudulent and Counterfeit Cisco Networking Equipment

A Florida resident and dual citizen of the United States and Turkey pleaded guilty yesterday in the District of New Jersey to running an extensive operation over many years to traffic in fraudulent and counterfeit Cisco networking equipment.

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May 17, 2023

Memphis Man Charged with Trafficking Counterfeit Airbags from China

Mohammed Al-Abadi imported counterfeit motor vehicle airbag parts from China, assembled them and then sold them on eBay to unsuspecting automobile repair shops and individual customers. Federal agents recovered more than 2,000 counterfeit airbags and parts from the defendant’s residence and place of business.

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March 27, 2023

Five Family Members Sentenced to Prison and Ordered to Forfeit a Combined $51.9 Million Dollars in Proceeds from Their Fraudulent Sale of Counterfeit Trademarked Cellular Phones and Accessories

The family members operated a multi-million dollar scheme wherein they sold counterfeit cellphones and cellphone accessories on Amazon.com and eBay.com which they misrepresented as new and genuine Apple and Samsung products.

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March 15, 2023

Takedown of Darknet Cryptocurrency Mixer that Processed Over $3 Billion of Unlawful Transactions

The Justice Department announced a coordinated international takedown of ChipMixer, a darknet cryptocurrency “mixing” service responsible for laundering more than $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency, between 2017 and the present, in furtherance of, among other activities, ransomware, darknet market, fraud, cryptocurrency heists and other hacking schemes.

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February 28, 2023

Indictment Charges Alleged Darknet Marketplace Fentanyl Dealer

Jacob Blair, of Coraopolis Pennsylvania was charged with running a counterfeit drug conspiracy that sold fentanyl and methamphetamine disguised as Oxycontin, Xanax and Adderall on a Darknet Marketplace.

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