FBI Prosecutes and Shuts Down “The Shadowcrew” Carding Forum

By Rebecca Seaman

While there are currently many Carding Forums operating on the web, the article Data Breaches: What the Underground World of “Carding” Reveals focuses on one particular organization whom the FBI managed to infiltrate and shut down: The Shadowcrew Criminal Organization. According to the Author; Kimberly Kiefer Peretti, this group“ Was a global organization of thousands of members that was dedicated to promoting and facilitating the electronic theft of personal identifying information, credit card and debit card fraud, and the production and sale of false identification documents”. The organization “Operated from 2002 until October 2004, when it was taken down by the USSS as the result of a yearlong undercover investigation known as Operation Firewall.”

The Shadowcrew website was a highly organized online meeting place where criminal hackers and other identity thieves would convene to post, trade and sell stolen account information obtained from large-scale data breaches. The online forum quickly made the data accessible to cyber thieves worldwide.

The Shadowcrew crime ring operated globally; emphasizing the new trend of organized crime being perpetuated in cyberspace. The FBI stated that during prosecution, “Shadowcrew defendants revealed that members from one country would conspire with members from another country to commit specific carding crimes. In addition, the FBI enlisted the help of several foreign governments during their investigation. These countries included Canada, Bulgaria, Belarus, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

What were the costs to businesses and consumers as a result of the Shadowcrew Crime ring? The FBI’s investigation concluded that “Shadowcrew members collectively trafficked in at least 1.5 million stolen credit card numbers that resulted in over $4 million in actual losses to credit card companies and financial institutions. However, it is estimated by law enforcement authorities that, had the organization not been interrupted, the credit card industry could have faced hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.”