ShadowCrew
Encyclopedia
ShadowCrew was a cybercrime
message board (forum
) that operated under the domain name ShadowCrew.com between August 2002 - October 2004 and assisted criminals with allegedley stealing an estimated $4.3-$10.0+ million US dollars from fraudulent credit card transactions alone.
According to the US Secret Service (USSS), the ShadowCrew’s mission was to facilitate, monitor, verify and streamline the exchange of stolen bank, debit, credit, email, Ebay and gift card account numbers, personal data, birth certificates, forged passports, insurance, college, social security, and US driver licenses and state identification cards between approved buyers and sellers from around the world.
On October 26, 2004 the USSS in cooperation with 15 US electronic crime task forces representing both state and federal agencies as well as Europol and international law enforcement from the United Kingdom
, Canada
, Bulgaria
, Belarus
, Sweden
, Poland
, Ukraine
and the Netherlands
concluded ‘Operation Firewall’ with the arrest of the 28 highest ranking members of the ShadowCrew.
Only in 2009, has it been confirmed that a high ranking member of the inner-circle of the ShadowCrew, CumbaJohnny (Albert Gonzalez
) was a long term police informant who was responsible for teaching the USSS how to monitor, trap and arrest the ShadowCrew.
Mr. Andrew Mantovani, a/k/a "Deck," a/k/a "d3ck," a/k/a "BlahBlahBlhSTFU," a/k/a "DeckerdIsMissin," a/k/a "ThnkYouPleaseDie," lived in Arizona and attended Scottsdale Community College part time as a business major. Mr. Scott S. Christie, the U.S. attorney involved with prosecuting the case stated - It was important (to Mr. Mantovani) to be recognized as the spiritual leader of ShadowCrew.
Mr. David Appleyard, a/k/a "Black Ops," a/k/a "BlackBagTricks," was a retired mortgage broker who lived in Linwood, New Jersey with his wife, two kids and his sick mother.
According to the US Justice Department, it was Mr. Mantovani, a business major, who came up with the idea of an EBay style business model for ShadowCreat that introduced people in need of stolen data or counterfeit identification to verified sellers of such products.
The ShadowCrew website also contained a large number of sub-forums where the latest information about hacking tricks, social engineering, credit card fraud, virus development, scams, phishing and every aspect of any imaginable fraudulent activity was examined and carefully analyzed.
to trade, buy, and sell anything from stolen personal information
, to hacked credit card numbers and false identification. Shadowcrew emerged from another underground site, counterfeitlibrary.com, in early 2002 and would be followed up by carderplanet.com, a website primarily in the Russian language.
, but shortly before CumbaJohnny's arrest, the server was in his possession, somewhere in New Jersey
.
4,000 members: The Federal indictment says:
"Shadowcrew was an international organization of approximately 4,000 members…" The last available page before October 27, 2004 on archive.org shows 2,709 registered members. To people familiar with the ShadowCrew forum, it is well known that many members had multiple user names. Members who were banned from the forum would frequently register with another user name as well. Lastly, the forum was around for over 2 years so there were likely many inactive accounts.
$4 million dollars in losses: The government was unable to find any concrete proof that the defendants in Operation: Firewall were responsible for any specific losses. The $4,000,000 figure was arrived at by multiplying the number of credit cards transferred by $500 each (as per federal law when no monetary figure in a fraud case can be determined). This figure assumes that every single card was valid and had been used.
CyberCrime
CyberCrime was an innovative, weekly America television program on TechTV that focused on the dangers facing computer users. Filmed in San Francisco, California, the show was hosted by Alex Wellen and Jennifer London...
message board (forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
) that operated under the domain name ShadowCrew.com between August 2002 - October 2004 and assisted criminals with allegedley stealing an estimated $4.3-$10.0+ million US dollars from fraudulent credit card transactions alone.
According to the US Secret Service (USSS), the ShadowCrew’s mission was to facilitate, monitor, verify and streamline the exchange of stolen bank, debit, credit, email, Ebay and gift card account numbers, personal data, birth certificates, forged passports, insurance, college, social security, and US driver licenses and state identification cards between approved buyers and sellers from around the world.
On October 26, 2004 the USSS in cooperation with 15 US electronic crime task forces representing both state and federal agencies as well as Europol and international law enforcement from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
concluded ‘Operation Firewall’ with the arrest of the 28 highest ranking members of the ShadowCrew.
Only in 2009, has it been confirmed that a high ranking member of the inner-circle of the ShadowCrew, CumbaJohnny (Albert Gonzalez
Albert Gonzalez
Albert Gonzalez is a computer hacker and computer criminal who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATM numbers from 2005 through 2007—the biggest such fraud in history.Gonzalez and his accomplices used SQL injection...
) was a long term police informant who was responsible for teaching the USSS how to monitor, trap and arrest the ShadowCrew.
Origins
According to the 2004 Federal Indictment, the concept of the ShadowCrew was developed in early 2002 during a chat session between Mr. Andrew Mantovani (age 21) and Mr. David Appleyard (age 43). It is unknown as to exactly what the circumstances were which led to the pair becoming acquainted.Mr. Andrew Mantovani, a/k/a "Deck," a/k/a "d3ck," a/k/a "BlahBlahBlhSTFU," a/k/a "DeckerdIsMissin," a/k/a "ThnkYouPleaseDie," lived in Arizona and attended Scottsdale Community College part time as a business major. Mr. Scott S. Christie, the U.S. attorney involved with prosecuting the case stated - It was important (to Mr. Mantovani) to be recognized as the spiritual leader of ShadowCrew.
Mr. David Appleyard, a/k/a "Black Ops," a/k/a "BlackBagTricks," was a retired mortgage broker who lived in Linwood, New Jersey with his wife, two kids and his sick mother.
According to the US Justice Department, it was Mr. Mantovani, a business major, who came up with the idea of an EBay style business model for ShadowCreat that introduced people in need of stolen data or counterfeit identification to verified sellers of such products.
The ShadowCrew website also contained a large number of sub-forums where the latest information about hacking tricks, social engineering, credit card fraud, virus development, scams, phishing and every aspect of any imaginable fraudulent activity was examined and carefully analyzed.
Purpose
ShadowCrew offered a haven for "carders" and hackersHacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
to trade, buy, and sell anything from stolen personal information
Identity theft
Identity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...
, to hacked credit card numbers and false identification. Shadowcrew emerged from another underground site, counterfeitlibrary.com, in early 2002 and would be followed up by carderplanet.com, a website primarily in the Russian language.
Organizational structure
Other key players who would become Administrators and Moderators were Deck (Andrew Mantovani), BlackOps (David Appleyard) and a handful of others. Shadowcrew grew to over "3,000 members" (many were "clones" and inactive accounts) worldwide with a small group of members leading the forums. During its early years, the site was hosted overseas, in Hong KongHong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, but shortly before CumbaJohnny's arrest, the server was in his possession, somewhere in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
.
Aftermath
The site flourished from the time it opened in 2002 until its demise in late October 2004. Even though the site was booming with criminal activity and all seemed well, the members did not know what was going on behind the scenes. Federal agents received their "big break" when they found CumbaJohnny. Upon Cumba's arrest, he immediately turned and started working with federal agents. From April 2003 to October 2004, Cumba assisted in gathering information and monitoring the site and those who utilized it. He started by taking out many of the Russians who were hacking databases and selling counterfeit credit cards.Legacy
Many sites appeared after Shadowcrew's demise, one of which was specifically focused on unraveling the mysteries of what actually happened. This site, thegrifters.net, was run by a formally indicted member (El Mariachi) in which he converted his old fraud site to an investigative site. Members of this group uncovered and compiled many pieces of information on the indicted members of Shadowcrew until thegrifters.net was taken down in early 2006.4,000 members: The Federal indictment says:
"Shadowcrew was an international organization of approximately 4,000 members…" The last available page before October 27, 2004 on archive.org shows 2,709 registered members. To people familiar with the ShadowCrew forum, it is well known that many members had multiple user names. Members who were banned from the forum would frequently register with another user name as well. Lastly, the forum was around for over 2 years so there were likely many inactive accounts.
$4 million dollars in losses: The government was unable to find any concrete proof that the defendants in Operation: Firewall were responsible for any specific losses. The $4,000,000 figure was arrived at by multiplying the number of credit cards transferred by $500 each (as per federal law when no monetary figure in a fraud case can be determined). This figure assumes that every single card was valid and had been used.
See also
- Computer crimeComputer crimeComputer crime, or cybercrime, refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network. The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target. Netcrime refers to criminal exploitation of the Internet. Such crimes may threaten a nation’s security and financial health...
- HackingHacker (computer security)In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
- Internet forums
- Organized crimeOrganized crimeOrganized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
- Russian MafiaRussian MafiaThe Russian Mafia is a name applied to organized crime syndicates in Russia and Ukraine. The mafia in various countries take the name of the country, as for example the Ukrainian mafia....
External links
- Archives of shadowcrew.com
- 'ShadowCrew Indictment
- Business Week "Hacker Hunters" article
- Another article in Business Week which mentions ShadowCrew in the context of e-gold