A Montreal man is among three suspects charged in what the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) calls “one of the largest reported data breaches in U.S. history.”
David-Manuel Santos Da Silva, listed as the co-owner, president and director of a company called 21 Celsius Inc., was arrested at Florida’s Ft. Lauderdale International Airport on Feb. 12.
Da Silva is accused of “conspiring to launder the proceeds obtained as a result of the massive data breach,” a DOJ release stated.
The other two men involved in the breach are 28-year-old Viet Quoc Nguyen and 25-year-old Giang Hoang Vu. Both men are Vietnamese citizens who resided in the Netherlands.
“The defendants allegedly made millions of dollars by stealing over a billion email addresses from email service providers,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell. “This case again demonstrates the resolve of the Department of Justice to bring accused cyber hackers from overseas to face justice in the United States.”
According to the DOJ, Da Silva’s company ran a (now defunct) website called Marketbay.com that had an “affiliated marketing arrangement” with Nguyen.
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“As an affiliate marketer, Nguyen allegedly received a commission on sales generated from Internet traffic that he directed to websites promoting specific products,” the DOJ statement read.
Nguyen “allegedly used the information stolen from the ESPs to send ‘spam’ emails to tens of millions of customers and provided hyperlinks to allow the purchase of the products.”
The products were allegedly promoted on Marketbay.com and between May 2009 and October 2011 Nguyen and Da Silva collected approximately $2 million for the sale of the products. The statement did not specify what those products were.
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According to a cached version of the website, Marketbay.com offered its merchants “a unique solution to bring targeted traffic to your product through our rapidly growing network of high quality.” affiliates.
Da Silva was indicted on March 4, accused of conspiring to commit money laundering, for helping Vu and Nguyen “generate revenue from the ‘spam.'” He will be arraigned in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday. Nguyen has not been arrested and is considered a fugitive.
The third suspect, Vu, was arrested in Deventer, Netherlands in 2012, following an FBI investigation in cooperation with “legal attaches stationed abroad” and Dutch officials. U.S. authorities extradited Vu last March and he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer fraud on Feb. 5. He’s due to be sentenced on April 21.
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