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The US Department of Justice said a Texas man bought 38,000 stolen PayPal accounts and used them to steal money from account holders. On Wednesday, May 11, 2022, the fraudster was sentenced to five years in prison.
The ministry said in a statement that Marcos Ponce, 37, of Austin, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit electronic payment fraud. The court case notes that Ponce and his accomplices operated from November 2015 to November 2018.
During this time, scammers have purchased more than 38,000 PayPal accounts. All data for entering profiles was bought on a specialized shadow forum. There, hackers published logins, passwords and all the information received about the owner on the trading platform.
After acquiring login details, the scammers looked for a third party who convinced them that they needed to accept funds from the stolen account and transfer them to another account. Such a step in the fraudulent scheme made it possible to complicate the way of moving money. The ministry said that for this, Ponce and accomplices developed their own social engineering algorithm for this situation and third parties did not even suspect that they were taking part in the crime.
• Source: https://www.justice[.]gov/opa/pr/man-sentenced-stealing-paypal-accounts-wire-fraud-scheme
The ministry said in a statement that Marcos Ponce, 37, of Austin, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit electronic payment fraud. The court case notes that Ponce and his accomplices operated from November 2015 to November 2018.
During this time, scammers have purchased more than 38,000 PayPal accounts. All data for entering profiles was bought on a specialized shadow forum. There, hackers published logins, passwords and all the information received about the owner on the trading platform.
After acquiring login details, the scammers looked for a third party who convinced them that they needed to accept funds from the stolen account and transfer them to another account. Such a step in the fraudulent scheme made it possible to complicate the way of moving money. The ministry said that for this, Ponce and accomplices developed their own social engineering algorithm for this situation and third parties did not even suspect that they were taking part in the crime.
• Source: https://www.justice[.]gov/opa/pr/man-sentenced-stealing-paypal-accounts-wire-fraud-scheme