A notorious hacker dubbed the “Don Corleone of cybercrime” — who was busted nearly a decade ago following an infamous breach of JPMorgan Chase and other Wall Street firms — allegedly ran a new scam while cooperating with the feds, according to a report.
Geri Shalon, a 40-year-old Israeli national, allegedly targeted thousands of Europeans while in US custody after reaching a deal that kept him out of prison.
While living in a seven bedroom house in Queens, Shalon allegedly managed a pan-European operation called Tradologic, which authorities say set up sham trading web sites and call centers that offered fake investments in binary options that netted at least 200 million euros from unsuspecting customers, according to Bloomberg News.
The alleged scam lured investors by posting fake ads on Facebook featuring European celebrities who were purported to have made money through exotic schemes and instruments.
A broker based in a call center in Europe called victims who were tricked into depositing a modest sum of $320 as an initial fee.
The victims would then be directed to a retention agent who trained them on how to “trade” on fabricated web sites.
The investors who were tricked into thinking they opened up trading accounts were allowed to withdraw money initially as a confidence-building measure, but when they tried to make subsequent withdrawals, they couldn’t because their money was wired to offshore companies, according to Bloomberg News.
When customers demanded their money back, the company simply stopped answering emails and phone calls, it was alleged.
A former associate of Shalon told Bloomberg News that he boasted “to have the FBI wrapped around his little finger” by freely operating the Europe-based criminal operation from New York despite the fact that he was cooperating with the feds.
Law enforcement officials in Austria and Germany say that an alleged co-conspirator wore a wire that enabled police to listen in on conversations involving Shalon.
“NY amazing for business,” Shalon is alleged to have texted the alleged co-conspirator, Werner Böhm.
In February 2021, an Israeli national, Ilya Tzorya, was named by Austrian law enforcement officials as one of the masterminds of the Tradologic scheme. He denied any wrongdoing.
Shalon was arrested in 2015 and extradited to the United States after orchestrating a series of cyber attacks, including the 2014 breach of JPMorgan Chase.
The JPMorgan hack yielded data on 76 million customers and seven million businesses, including their names, email addresses and telephone numbers.
It is considered one of the largest thefts of data from a US financial institution.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Shalon along with fellow Israeli national Ziv Orenstein and an American, Joshua Samuel Aaron, also targeted 12 companies — among them nine financial services firms — and media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal.
The alleged enterprise included pumping up stock prices with sham promotional emails, running online casinos, operating an illegal bitcoin exchange and laundering money through at least 75 shell companies and accounts around the world.
A separate indictment unveiled in Atlanta against Shalon, Aaron and an unnamed defendant said the brokerages E*Trade Financial Corp and Scotttrade Inc were also targets, and personal information of more than 10 million customers was compromised.
Shalon sought to avoid prison time by offering US authorities information on cyber-criminal activities.
He spent 10 months in a New York jail before being allowed to move into the seven-bedroom home in Queens with his wife and four daughters before he was eventually sentenced in January 2021 to time served.
He is alleged to have helped authorities arrest Aaron, who had fled to Russia as a fugitive, by having his father, a well-connected banker, bribe officials there, according to Bloomberg News.
As part of his cooperation agreement, Shalon forfeited more than $400 million in ill-gotten gains.
In exchange for staying out of prison, Shalon provided information to the authorities that led to the arrest of notorious co-conspirators including Russian expert hacker Andrei Tyurin, who is credited with executing the JPMorgan hack.
Shalon, who is living as a free man in a suburb of Tel Aviv, was also key in helping authorities track down Peter Levashov, a Russian hacker who had been wanted by the FBI for years for allegedly masterminding a global botnet scheme that resulted in the theft of personal information.
The Post has sought comment from the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and the Justice Department.
With Post Wires
