Police Took Payoffs from Russian Cyber Gang

If you are a hacker in fear of getting pinched by law enforcement, then you shouldn't worry because you can simply bribe the police and everything will be fine right? Well, not really.

While it sounds like a great gesture to bribe law enforcement in certain predicaments, it is never a good idea. A Russian cyber gang, according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), paid off local police and judiciary authorities to conceal their online criminal activity.

The efforts initiated by international law enforcement efforts to shut down a cybercrime ring were delayed due to the cybercrime ring that it was involved with. Not only were the bribed police not taking any actions to put an end to the cyber gangs malicious actions, but they had the Russian Business Network (RBN), a criminal ISP, on their side as well. The RBN offered the ring of cyberthieves web-hosting for their illegal sites which ranged from phishing pages to child pornography. According to Soca intelligence, who was mainly involved in the discovery of the bribery, other front companies were involved in the crime ring's connections.

Leaders of companies such as St. Petersburg Telecom, who were one of the front companies used by the cyber gang, drove around in expensive vehicles such as a bulletproof Audi A8 with an escort according to Auld. You can basically think of this case of bribery in terms of a movie where dirty cops are paid big bucks to protect the criminal's best interest.

Back in 2007, new RBN networks were in process of being setup in Asia along with additional front companies to assist the Russian cyber gang in their efforts but were put to an abrupt stop from the joint efforts of Soca, Internet Service Providers and the FBI. The RBN ceased operations in 2007 but then started back up just recently. Since then, the RBN has paid off many networks and organizations so they could run their operation without any law enforcement roadblocks.

The RBN was able to use a front organization that was accredited as a local internet registry (LIR) in 2006 by paying Ripe NCC or Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre, which is one of the five European regional Internet registries. Legally, the RBN was classified as an actual business establishment after it received an acceptance as an LIR. During a recent audit, the RBN was found to be using Ripe's resources which was a violation of Ripe's policies. As a result of the audit, all resources were reclaimed by Ripe in May of 2008.

Since the findings, the RBN continues to be engaged in criminal activities while Ripe is willing to cooperate with law enforcement agencies. Once again, crime does not pay for long.