Man Gets 6 Years in Prison for Laundering $2.5 Million for Carders

Kim Zetter writes on Threat Level:

A California man who served as a lynchpin for transmitting stolen money to hackers and carders in East Europe and elsewhere was sentenced on Thursday to 6 years in prison for conspiring to launder money.

Cesar Carranza, 38, also known as “uBuyWeRush,” ran a legitimate business selling liquidation and overstock merchandise online and from three California stores.

But, according to an indictment [.pdf], he also sold MSR-206’s to carders to encode stolen bank card data onto blank cards, and he served as a conduit to transmit stolen money between mules and carders.

He worked with many of the top carders in the criminal underground between 2003 and 2006, including Maksim “Maksik” Yastremskiy, a Ukrainian carder who allegedly worked with TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez and was considered by authorities to be one of the top sellers of stolen card data on the internet.

In 2003 and 2004, Carranza became an approved and trusted vendor on online criminal forums such as CarderPlanet and Shadowcrew, advertising his goods and services and dispensing advice on the best tools to use for various criminal endeavors.

More here.