Belarus man looking at 38 years in jail for identity theft

Dmitry Naskovetz, a 26-year-old Belarusian national, has plead guilty to three charges of fraud and identity theft and could end up in jail for a total of 38 years.

He admitted to being the mastermind behind a website called CallService.biz, which offered services to identity thieves that needed someone who would call banks pretending to be the legitimate bank account holders and confirming the fraudulent transactions.

He employed a number of English and German native speakers who would impersonate the account holders, claim that they were the victims of identity theft and – after answering a number of personal security questions – would authorize the transactions initiated by the criminals.

Arrested in the Czech Republic in April 2010 in a coordinated effort by the US Department of Justice, the Belarusian and Lithuanian cybercrime departments and the Czech police, he was extradited to the US and charged.

Sergey Semashko – his partner in crime and the owner and administrator of Cardingworld.cc, the underground criminal forum where Naskovetz advertised its services – was also arrested on the same day in Belarus, but he hasn’t been extradited to the US and will be facing a court in his own country.

According to PC World, Naskovetz has yesterday finally pled guilty to all the charges and the sentence is due to be delivered on May 26.