The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has indicted Russian national Artem Lifshits in a conspiracy to steal Americans’ personal data and to open fraudulent banking and cryptocurrency accounts, the agency said in a press release.
Russian Project Lakhta member charged with wire fraud conspiracy. Used stolen identities of U.S. persons to open fraudulent accounts and promote political influence operations. @USATerwilliger https://t.co/lWJMIS3hCd
— U.S. Attorney EDVA (@EDVAnews) September 10, 2020
According to the agency, the 27-year-old Lifshits worked at the Saint Petersburg-based ‘Agency of Internet Research’, known as the ‘troll factory’. He is linked to entrepreneur Evgeny Prigozhin. The funding of their activities was conducted through cryptocurrency, according to U.S. officials.
The Russian obtained access to Americans’ identification data in his role as head of the translation department of the Lakhta project, a post he has held since 2017.
Lifshits opened fraudulent accounts that he used to fund the Lakhta project and for personal enrichment, the agency noted.
Specific cryptocurrency exchanges involved in Lifshits and the Lakhta project were not named. However, at least one exchange said it had become a victim of fraud by Russians due to forged documents required to meet KYC requirements.
According to testimony by a Secret Service investigator, the Lakhta project has run a wide-scale operation on social networks since April 2014 in an effort to influence the U.S. electoral process. The trolls’ main aim was to incite civil unrest and polarize the population on political issues.
In addition to Lifshits, the Treasury also sanctioned two other Russians connected to the organization — Anton Andreyev and Darya Aslanova.
Treasury sanctions Russia-linked election interference actors https://t.c/FVGjFUVnGz
— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) September 10, 2020
The Treasury also imposed sanctions on cryptocurrency addresses linked to the defendants.
As reported, in 2018 the U.S. Department of Justice released an indictment against 12 alleged Russian officers of the General Staff’s Main Directorate who used cryptocurrency to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
Analysts say the transactions were conducted through the BTC-e exchange.
In July 2020, the Main Center for Special Technologies of the Russian General Staff was added to the EU sanctions list for involvement in the ransomware NotPetya attacks in 2017.
Follow ForkLog news on Telegram: ForkLog Feed — the full news feed, ForkLog — the most important news and polls.