VoIP In Detail covers everything related to VOIP, software, hardware, service providers, reviews, configurations, standards, tips & tricks and everything else related to voice over IP networks, IP telephony and Internet Telephony. A Romanian citizen was sentenced Monday to more than four years in prison as the first foreign defendant convicted in a global crime ring that stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from Internet users.
Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman pleaded guilty last year for his role in the “phishing” scheme, which involved sending fraudulent e-mails that included links that directed recipients to fake Web sites where they were asked to input sensitive data. In all, 38 people have been charged in Connecticut and California, and more than half are Romanians.
Authorities say Nicola-Roman accessed e-mail accounts containing stolen credit card information and used the credit card numbers to steal between $200,000 and $400,000. He we was sentenced Monday to 50 months in prison.
“Sitting at a computer in Romania, you in effect wreaked havoc upon the people whose credit card numbers you were stealing,” U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall said. “Our economy rests upon people trusting they can use access cards, credit cards, debit cards. When the use of them is disrupted, it’s no small pain to the victim. It is a damage to the economic system of our country.”
Nicola-Roman, 23, of Craiova, Romania, was arrested in Bulgaria in 2007 and extradited to the United States. He told Hall that that he has had a lot of time in jail to think about what he did “and how wrong it was.”
“I just want to apologize to them,” he said, referring to his victims.
But prosecutor Edward Chang said Nicola-Roman had to be “dragged through every admission he makes.”
“It’s clear that he is an individual who doesn’t fully accept the enormity of what he has done,” Chang said.
Prosecutors said the scam also operated from the United States, Canada, Portugal and Pakistan. Phishers based in Romania snagged information about thousands of credit and debit card accounts and other…
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Romanian Citizen Sentenced in Phishing Scheme
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