A criminal complaint was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Lithuanian national Vytautas Parfionovas with computer intrusion, securities fraud, money laundering, bank fraud and wire fraud, among other offenses. The charged crimes stem from a variety of criminal conduct between 2011 and 2018 in which Parfionovas gained access to U.S.-based computers, including email servers and computers belonging to U.S. financial institutions, in order to steal money from online bank accounts and securities brokerage accounts. Parfinovas was arrested in Ukraine on October 24, 2019, and was extradited to the United States on November 21, 2019.
As charged in the criminal complaint, starting in January 2011, Parfionovas and his co-conspirators engaged in a long-running scheme to steal money through a variety of computer intrusions.
In one part of the scheme, Parfionovas and his co-conspirators allegedly obtained login information for victims’ securities brokerage accounts through various methods, including stealing that information from the server of a U.S. securities order management company to which the conspirators gained unauthorized access. The conspirators then used those accounts to steal money and conduct trades to their own benefit. Initially, conspirators accessed the victim brokerage accounts and transferred money from those accounts to other accounts under their control. After financial institutions began to block those unauthorized transfers, Parfionovas and his co-conspirators accessed other victim brokerage accounts without authorization, and placed unauthorized stock trades within those accounts while simultaneously trading profitably in the same stocks from accounts that they controlled. On or about February 22, 2016, Parfionovas explained this aspect of the scheme to a co-conspirator as follows: “I take some fraud logins. Do some s[_]t with stock . . . sometimes 2-3 in day . . . manipulation is 100%.” In this manner, Parfionovas and his co-conspirators realized financial gains while causing losses of more than $5.5 million.
In another part of the scheme, ..
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