More work by Jeff Leeds. After a great piece on money laundering and
Taves' involvement, the Sept. 11, 1999 LA Times runs an article on how
Charter Pacific Bank sold 900,000 credit card numbers to Taves et al!
July 1999: Kevin Poulson reviews Ken Tave's audacious career for ZD-TV's
Cybercrime/Chaos Theory column -
A Criminal Equation.
July 1999: Paul Wallich has a piece in Cyberview in the
August 1999
issue of Scientific American. This gets a mention in hackernews.com, but
not slashdot (yet). Paul is a superb writer, he manages to make a complex
story clear and interesting!
May 8, 1999: ANN news in Japan shows a quite popular 1 hour documentary
on this and other frauds. I get to be on Japanese TV!
Jeff Leeds' articles in the LA Times:
May 4 &
May 5th
1999. Focus is on Ken Taves, but there's some coverage of broader bank and
credit card issues. These links require payment to access. There was a third
article in the series as well.
http://www.doublebillers.com/
is a site documenting ongoing frauds in 2002 involving some familiar names
and methodologies.
There is an extensive Japanese site
reporting on Webtel/N-Bill and other credit card frauds -
http://www.web110.com/sousa/index.shtml. Yossy reports: "I and other
fact-finding committee members are very interested. Over 20 victims
mail to our site about fraud from WEBTEL, MJD SERVICE, N-BILL every day."
We've received many very valuable contributions from a contributor to that
site ("Yakei").
Warning, this one is related to "adult web sites":
http://www.janesguide.com/tips/PaySiteTable2.html#n maintains a page
with much of the material we've discovered here. This link skips some of the
slightly off-putting graphics. No new information, but ironically it is the
"adult web sites" (porn vendors) who appear to be most concerned about
Netfill/Webtel/N-Bill's fraud, not the banks.
The Incomtel
Variant (The Register, 2000): A Russian credit card fraud with small
ruble charges.
Money laundering (NYT Magazine, 10 Dec 2000): How money from this and
bigger operations gets cleansed. Also some interesting notes on how one
creates a bank that will support directly, or indirectly, illegal
operations. "Starting a bank in Nauru is simple and comparatively
cheap. If you click on
http://www.anti-taxes.com/, you can get one going for just $25,000.
(This outfit handles registration and payments to the Nauru Agency
Corporation.) Benefits are wide ranging, according to the Web site: you can
"improve your image by owning your own bank" while hiding your money from "a
vindictive ex-spouse." The pitch is clearly not aimed at the average
investor. "Seize your assets before your creditors even think of it," the
site recommends."
And a
very interesting review from a very technical source ... The author
likes the AmEx fraud detectors. It's odd to read the objective analysis of
this site's evolution.
