Authorities Seize Stolen Card Marketplace Websites

U.S. government shuts down 36 illegal domains

Friday, April 27, 2012

The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that federal authorities had successfully seized three dozen websites that illegally sold stolen credit card numbers to fraudsters.

These sites worked much like a normal shopping site: shoppers could buy any number of cards, searching by card type, the account's country of origin and the like, then adding them to the cart and then paying for them as they would any other online sale, according to a report from Dow Jones Newswires. The seizures were part of what's been called an international effort on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency, as well as several other overseas organizations.

Investigators were able to obtain stolen credit card numbers for accounts issued by Bank of America, SunTrust Banks, Capital One Financial and other similar institutions, the report said.

Adam Levin, the chairman for Identity Theft 911, has a blog about the dangers consumers face from this type of identity theft and what they can do to both spot and mitigate the problems it can cause.

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