In another cybercrime case, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has sentenced Ukrainian national Vitalii Chychasov, aged 37, to eight years in federal prison. Chychasov’s crime was his role in administering the SSNDOB Marketplace, notorious for selling personal information, including names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of individuals in the United States.
The SSNDOB Marketplace operated through a series of websites – BLACKJOB.BIZ, SSNDOB.CLUB, SSNDOB.VIP, and SSNDOB.WS – which were shut down following seizure orders executed against their domain names on June 7, 2022. The court has also ordered a forfeiture of $5 million, representing the proceeds from this fraudulent operation, and required Chychasov to relinquish his interests in the aforementioned domain names.
Chychasov’s capture in March 2022 while attempting to enter Hungary marked the beginning of the end of his illicit activities. He was later extradited to the U.S. from Hungary in July 2022. Court records reveal that Chychasov, along with other administrators of the marketplace, actively advertised their services on dark web criminal forums. They provided customer support, monitored site activities, including tracking when buyers deposited funds and employed various methods to maintain anonymity and evade detection. These included operating servers in multiple countries and insisting on digital payment methods. The SSNDOB Marketplace, responsible for selling the personal details of millions of U.S. individuals, generated over $19 million USD in sales revenue.
The stolen Social Security numbers traded on this marketplace were used for committing various frauds, notably during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. This period saw a surge in sales on the marketplace as fraudulent activities spiked amidst the disbursement of emergency funds by the U.S. government to businesses and families.
