A Ukrainian cybercriminal was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a U.S. judge for his role in co-founding the CarderPlanet website, where thieves sold stolen credit-card data and other financial information.

Roman Vega, 49, was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, after pleading guilty in 2009 to conspiracies to commit money laundering and access device fraud. Vega has been in custody since his arrest in 2003 in Cyprus.

CarderPlanet was “one of the most notorious websites for computer hacking, money laundering and credit card fraud,” the Justice Department said in court papers. The website, which allowed cybercriminals to buy and sell stolen financial data, once had 6,000 members and a hierarchy similar to the mafia’s, which Vega helped enforce, the U.S. said.

“Vega helped create one of the largest and most sophisticated credit card sites in the cybercrime underworld,” acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 20 years for Vega, who faced as long as 27 1/2 years. Vega, also known as Boa, had asked U.S. District Judge Allyne Ross for a term of time served, arguing in court papers that the government overstated the financial harm that he caused.
‘No Evidence’

“More than 10 years after Mr. Vega’s arrest, the government has presented no evidence regarding actual losses incurred as a result of Mr. Vega’s conduct, nor has there been any evidence regarding the intended amount of loss,” Matthew Fishbein, an attorney for Vega, wrote in a July 15 court filing.

Vega founded two Internet sites devoted to carding, or the theft and sale of large volumes of credit card data through computer hacking, prosecutors said. In the late 1990s he set up Boa Factory, and in 2001 he helped run CarderPlanet.

After he came into U.S. custody, Vega cooperated for a time. He told authorities that he “instituted rules and imposed order among the carders, and that he encouraged carders to institute a type of peer review system to prevent fraud amongst carders,” according to an Oct. 3 court filing by prosecutors.

Beyond CarderPlanet and Boa Factory, Vega “directed cells of financial crime teams throughout the globe” to hack computers and steal credit card and financial data, prosecutors wrote.
Cyprus Arrest

Vega was arrested in February 2003 by Cypriot authorities near a shopping mall in Nicosia, according to a May 2012 opinion by Ross. He led arresting officers to his hotel room, where they confiscated laptops with thousands of stolen credit card numbers and evidence of his involvement in their sale through an Internet marketplace, according to the judge.

He was convicted in Cyprus and incarcerated there until May 2004, when he was extradited to federal court in California to face computer fraud charges. He pleaded guilty in 2006.

In November 2007, he was indicted on federal charges in Brooklyn and began cooperating before pleading guilty in front of Ross in January 2009, according to the judge’s opinion. Vega later ended his cooperation and tried to withdraw the plea, saying his lawyer was ineffective, he had a poor grasp of English, and he had dental problems.

The judge refused his request in May 2012.
Soviet Army

Vega was born in Ukraine and later graduated from high school with the country’s highest achievement award, according to his lawyer’s filing. He served in the Soviet army in Afghanistan as a communications specialist in the intelligence division. After his discharge, he studied mathematics for five years and served in the Crimean Mountain Emergency Service, using his radio skills to aid rescue missions.

He was active in the pro-democracy movement in the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, in response to “the widespread fighting and lawlessness in Eastern Europe that followed the collapse of communism,” Vega and others helped found a Ukrainian organization to defend businesses against corruption, according to his lawyer’s filing.

In 1993, he set up a business to provide surveillance and intelligence equipment to various governments, and he later exported consumer electronics from Singapore to post-Soviet republics, according to his lawyer.