TRENTON, N.J. A Florida man was sentenced today to 37 months in prison for laundering funds related to a $9 million business account takeover scheme with ties to Eastern Europe, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.
Igor Buzyukov, 52, of Weston, Florida, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson to an information charging him with conspiracy to commit money laundering. Judge Thompson imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Between February 2018 and July 2018, several clients of Company-1, a financial technology company headquartered in San Jose, California, fell victim to an account takeover scheme resulting in total losses exceeding $9 million.
The scheme generally involved an unidentified individual or individuals calling Company-1 and impersonating a representative of one of the victim companies. The impostor(s) would then request that an unauthorized bank account be added to the victims Company-1 accounts and be designated to receive payments from e-commerce customers.
The unauthorized bank accounts added to the victims Company-1 accounts were each controlled by Buzyukov under the name of a corporation registered to him in the State of Florida. After monies were deposited to the unauthorized accounts, Buzyukov would transfer the funds to other accounts controlled by him. Buzyukov then wired the majority of the funds to several bank accounts held by various individuals in Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.
Buzyukov also admitted to creating fake invoices in the amounts of the wire transfers in order to make the transactions appear legitimate.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Thompson sentenced Buzyukov to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $160,000, his illegal proceeds from the scheme.
U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of the U.S. Secret Service, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Mark McKevitt in Newark with the investigation leading to todays sentencing.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Torntore of the U.S. Attorneys Cybercrime Unit.
Source: U.S. Secret Service