Alleged global credit card fraud kingpin arrested in France

French authorities have arrested a man alleged to be one of the most active international dealers in stolen credit card information, delivering a potentially significant blow to an innovative and thriving criminal network.

Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin, 27, of Russia, was arrested Saturday in Nice, France, while attempting to board a flight to Moscow.

The French national police made the arrest based on pending charges against Mr. Horohorin in Washington. The charges were unsealed today.

Horohorin, a citizen of both Israel and the Ukraine, was indicted by a federal grand jury in November on charges that he engaged in an illicit international network to facilitate credit card fraud and identity theft.

He is being held in France pending extradition to the US.

Horohorin was the target of an undercover US Secret Service investigation. He is charged with helping to create and use illicit on-line forums to make fast and easy transactions to sell stolen credit card information to those seeking the information to finance fraudulent transactions.

On such site is called CarderPlanet. According to the indictment, Horohorin used the online name “BadB” to advertise and sell stolen credit care information via such online forums.

Under the scheme, potential purchasers would create accounts on a website run by Horohorin. The site was designed to facilitate the exchange of money for stolen credit card information.

Secret Service agents infiltrated the network by posing as buyers and purchasing the stolen credit card information.

“The network created by the founders of CarderPlanet, including Vladislav Horohorin, remains one of the most sophisticated organizations of online financial criminals in the world,” said US Secret Service Assistant Director for Investigations Michael Merritt.

“This network has been repeatedly linked to nearly every major intrusion of financial information reported to the international law enforcement community,” he said.