An exhaustive inquiry published today by a consortium of investigative journalists says a three-part series KrebsOnSecurity published in 2015 on a Romanian ATM skimming gang operating in Mexico’s top tourist destinations disrupted their highly profitable business, which raked in an estimated $1.2 billion and enjoyed the protection of top Mexican authorities.

The multimedia investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and several international journalism partners detailed the activities of the so-called Riviera Maya crime gang, allegedly a mafia-like group of Romanians who until very recently ran their own ATM company in Mexico called “Intacash” and installed sophisticated electronic card skimming devices inside at least 100 cash machines throughout Mexico.

According to the OCCRP, Riviera Maya’s skimming devices allowed thieves to clone the cards, which were used to withdraw funds from ATMs in other countries — often halfway around the world in places like India, Indonesia, and Taiwan.

Investigators say each skimmer captured on average 1,000 cards per month, siphoning about $200 from individual victim accounts. This allowed the crime gang to steal approximately $20 million monthly.

“The gang had little tricks,” OCCRP reporters recounted in their video documentary (above). “They would use the cards in different cities all over the globe and wait three months so banks would struggle to trace where the card had originally been cloned.”

In September 2015, I traveled to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to find and document almost two dozen ATMs in the region that were compromised with Bluetooth-based skimming devices. Unlike most skimmers — which can be detected by looking for out-of-place components attached to the exterior of a compromised cash machine — these skimmers were hooked to the internal electronics of ATMs operated by Intacash’s competitors by authorized personnel who’d reportedly been bribed or coerced by the gang.

But because the skimmers were Bluetooth-based, allowing thieves periodically to collect stolen data just by strolling up to a compromised machine with a mobile device, I was able to detect which ATMs had been hacked using nothing more than a cheap smart phone.

Several days of wandering around Mexico’s top tourist areas uncovered these sophisticated skimmers inside ATMs in Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, including a compromised ATM in the lobby of my hotel in Cancun. OCCRP investigators said the gang also had installed the same skimmers in ATMs at tourist hotspots on the western coast of Mexico, in Puerto Vallarta, Sayulita and Tijuana.

Part III of my 2015 investigation concluded that Intacash was likely behind the scheme. An ATM industry source told KrebsOnSecurity at the time that his technicians had been approached by ATM installers affiliated with Intacash, offering those technicians many times their monthly salaries if they would provide periodic access to the machines they maintained.

The alleged leader of the Riviera Maya organization and principal owner of Intacash, 43-year-old Florian “The Shark” Tudor, is a Romanian with permanent residence in Mexico. Tudor claims he’s an innocent, legitimate businessman who’s been harassed and robbed by Mexican authorities.

Last year, police in Mexico arrested Tudor for illegal weapons possession, and raided his various properties there in connection with an investigation into the 2018 murder of his former bodyguard, Constantin Sorinel Marcu.

According to prosecution documents, Marcu and The Shark spotted my reporting shortly after it was published in 2015, and discussed what to do next on a messaging app:

The Shark: Krebsonsecurity.com See this. See the video and everything. There are two episodes. They made a telenovela.

Marcu: I see. It’s bad.

The Shark: They destroyed us. That’s it. Fuck his mother. Close everything.

The intercepted communications indicate The Shark also wanted revenge on whoever was responsible for leaking information about their operations.

The Shark: Tell them that I am going to kill them.

Marcu: Okay, I can kill them. Any time, any hour.

The Shark: They are checking all the machines. Even at banks. They found over 20.

Marcu: Whaaaat?!? They found? Already??

Throughout my investigation, I couldn’t be sure whether Intacash’s shiny new ATMs — which positively blanketed tourist areas in and around Cancun — also were used to siphon customer card data. I did write about my suspicions that Intacash’s ATMs were up to no good when I found they frequently canceled transactions just after a PIN was entered, and typically failed to provide paper receipts for withdrawals made in U.S. dollars.

But citing some of the thousands of official documents obtained in their investigation, the OCCRP says investigators now believe Intacash installed the same or similar skimming devices in its own ATMs prior to deploying them — despite advertising them as equipped with the latest security features and fraudulent device inhibitors.

Tudor’s organization “had the access that gave The Shark’s crew huge opportunities for fraud,” the OCCRP reports. “And on the Internet, the number of complaints grew. Foreign tourists in Mexico fleeced” by Intacash’s ATMs.

Many of the compromised ATMs I located in my travels throughout Mexico were at hotels, and while Intacash’s ATMs could be found on many street locations in the region, it was rare to find them installed at hotels.

The confidential source with whom I drove from place to place at the time said Intacash avoided installing their machines at hotels — despite such locations being generally far more profitable — for one simple reason: If one’s card is cloned from a hotel ATM, the customer can easily complain to the hotel staff. With a street ATM, not so much.

The investigation by the OCCRP and its partners paints a vivid picture of a highly insular, often violent transnational organized crime ring that controlled at least 10 percent of the $2 billion annual global market for skimmed cards.

It also details how the group laundered their ill-gotten gains, and is alleged to have built a human smuggling ring that helped members of the crime gang cross into the U.S. and ply their skimming trade against ATMs in the United States. Finally, the series highlights how the Riviera Maya gang operated with impunity for several years by exploiting relationships with powerful anti-corruption officials in Mexico.

Tudor and many of his associates maintain their innocence and are still living as free men in Mexico, although Tudor is facing charges in Romania for his alleged involvement with organized crime, attempted murder and blackmail. Intacash is no longer operating in Mexico. In 2019, Intacash’s sponsoring bank in Mexico suspended the company’s contract to process ATM transactions.

For much more on this investigation, check out OCCRP’s multi-part series, How a Crew of Romanian Criminals Conquered the World of ATM Skimming.

The criminal group behind the REvil ransomware enterprise has begun auctioning off sensitive data stolen from companies hit by its malicious software. The move marks an escalation in tactics aimed at coercing victims to pay up — and publicly shaming those who don’t. But it may also signal that ransomware purveyors are searching for new ways to profit from their crimes as victim businesses struggle just to keep the lights on during the unprecedented economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past 24 hours, the crooks responsible for spreading the ransom malware “REvil” (a.k.a. “Sodin” and “Sodinokibi“) used their Dark Web “Happy Blog” to announce its first ever stolen data auction, allegedly selling files taken from a Canadian agricultural production company that REvil says has so far declined its extortion demands.

The victim firm’s auction page says a successful bidder will get three databases and more than 22,000 files stolen from the agricultural company. It sets the minimum deposit at $5,000 in virtual currency, with the starting price of $50,000.

Prior to this auction, REvil — like many other ransomware gangs — has sought to pressure victim companies into paying up mainly by publishing a handful of sensitive files stolen from their extortion targets, and threatening to release more data unless and until the ransom demand is met.

Experts say the auction is a sign that ransomware groups may be feeling the financial pinch from the current economic crisis, and are looking for new ways to extract value from victims who are now less likely or able to pay a ransom demand.

Lawrence Abrams, editor of the computer help and news Web site BleepingComputer, said while some ransomware groups have a history of selling victim data on cybercrime forums, this latest move by REvil may be just another tactic used by criminals to force victims to negotiate a ransom payment.

“The problem is a lot of victim companies just don’t have the money [to pay ransom demands] right now,” Abrams said. “Others have gotten the message about the need for good backups, and probably don’t need to pay. But maybe if the victim is seeing their data being actively bid on, they may be more inclined to pay the ransom.”

There is some evidence to suggest that the recent economic downturn wrought by COVID-19 has had a measurable impact on ransomware payouts. A report published in mid-April by cryptocurrency research firm Chainalysis found that ransomware payments “have decreased significantly since the COVID-19 crisis intensified in the U.S. and Europe in early March.”

Abrams said other ransomware groups have settled on different methods to increase victim payouts, noting that one prominent gang is now doubly extorting targets — demanding one payment amount in return for a digital key that can unlock files scrambled by the malware, and another payment in exchange for a promise to permanently delete data stolen from the victim.

The implied threat is that victims who pay to recover their files but don’t bite on the deletion payment can expect to see their private data traded, published or sold on the Dark Web.

“Some of these [extortion groups] have said if they don’t get paid they’re going to sell the victim’s data on the Dark Web, in order to recoup their costs,” Abrams said. “Others are now charging a few not only for the ransomware decryptor, but also a fee to delete the victim’s data. So it’s a double vig.”

The FBI and multiple security firms have advised victims not to pay any ransom demands, as doing so just encourages the attackers and in any case may not result in actually regaining access to encrypted files. In practice, however, many cybersecurity consulting firms are quietly urging their customers that paying up is the fastest route back to business-as-usual.

Here are a few tips that can help reduce the likelihood that you or your organization will fall victim to a ransomware attack:

-Patch, early and often: Many ransomware attacks leverage known security flaws in servers and desktops.

-Disable RDP: Short for Remote Desktop Protocol, this feature of Windows allows a system to be remotely administered over the Internet. A ridiculous number of businesses — particularly healthcare providers — get hit with ransomware because they leave RDP open to the Internet and secured with easy-to-guess passwords. And there are a number of criminal services that sell access to brute-forced RDP installations.

-Filter all email: Invest in security systems that can block executable files at the email gateway.

-Isolate mission-critical systems and data: This can be harder than it sounds. It may be worth hiring a competent security firm to make sure this is done right.

-Backup key files and databases: Bear in mind that ransomware can encrypt any network or cloud-based files or folders that are mapped and have been assigned a drive letter. Backing up to a secondary system that is not assigned a drive letter or is disconnected when it’s not backing up data is key. The old “3-2-1” backup rule comes into play here: Wherever possible, keep three backups of your data, on two different storage types, with at least one backup offsite.

-Disable macros in Microsoft Office: Block external content in Office files. Educate users that ransomware very often succeeds only when a user opens Office file attachment sent via email and manually enables Macros.

-Enable controlled folder access: Create rules to disallow the running of executable files in Windows from local user profile folders (App Data, Local App Data, ProgramData, Temp, etc.)

Sites like nomoreransom.org distribute free decryptor tools that can help some ransomware victims recover files without paying a ransom demand.

When law enforcement agencies tout their latest cybercriminal arrest, the defendant is often cast as a bravado outlaw engaged in sophisticated, lucrative, even exciting activity. But new research suggests that as cybercrime has become dominated by pay-for-service offerings, the vast majority of day-to-day activity needed to support these enterprises is in fact mind-numbingly boring and tedious, and that highlighting this reality may be a far more effective way combat cybercrime and steer offenders toward a better path.

The findings come in a new paper released by researchers at Cambridge University’s Cybercrime Centre, which examined the quality and types of work needed to build, maintain and defend illicit enterprises that make up a large portion of the cybercrime-as-a-service market. In particular, the academics focused on botnets and DDoS-for-hire or “booter” services, the maintenance of underground forums, and malware-as-a-service offerings.

In examining these businesses, the academics stress that the romantic notions of those involved in cybercrime ignore the often mundane, rote aspects of the work that needs to be done to support online illicit economies. The researchers concluded that for many people involved, cybercrime amounts to little more than a boring office job sustaining the infrastructure on which these global markets rely, work that is little different in character from the activity of legitimate system administrators.

Richard Clayton, a co-author of the report and director of Cambridge’s Cybercrime Centre, said the findings suggest policymakers and law enforcement agencies may be doing nobody a favor when they issue aggrandizing press releases that couch their cybercrime investigations as targeting sophisticated actors.

“The way in which everyone looks at cybercrime is they’re all interested in the rockstars and all the exciting stuff,” Clayton told KrebsOnSecurity. “The message put out there is that cybercrime is lucrative and exciting, when for most of the people involved it’s absolutely not the case.”

From the paper:

“We find that as cybercrime has developed into industrialized illicit economies, so too have a range of tedious supportive forms of labor proliferated, much as in mainstream industrialized economies. We argue that cybercrime economies in advanced states of growth have begun to create their own tedious, low-fulfillment jobs, becoming less about charismatic transgression and deviant identity, and more about stability and the management and diffusion of risk. Those who take part in them, the research literature suggests, may well be initially attracted by exciting media portrayals of hackers and technological deviance.”

“However, the kinds of work and practices in which they actually become involved are not reflective of the excitement and exploration which characterized early ‘hacker’ communities, but are more similar to low-level work in drug dealing gangs, involving making petty amounts of money for tedious work in the service of aspirations that they may one day be one of the major players. This creates the same conditions of boredom…which are found in mainstream jobs when the reality emerges that these status and financial goals are as blocked in the illicit economy as they are in the regular job market.”

The researchers drew on interviews with people engaged in such enterprises, case studies on ex- or reformed criminal hackers, and from scraping posts by denizens of underground forums and chat channels. They focused on the activity needed to keep various crime services operating efficiently and free from disruption from interlopers, internecine conflict, law enforcement or competitors.

BOOTER BLUES

For example, running an effective booter service requires a substantial amount of administrative work and maintenance, much of which involves constantly scanning for, commandeering and managing large collections of remote systems that can be used to amplify online attacks.

Booter services (a.k.a. “stressers”) — like many other cybercrime-as-a-service offerings — tend to live or die by their reputation for uptime, effectiveness, treating customers fairly, and for quickly responding to inquiries or concerns from users. As a result, these services typically require substantial investment in staff needed for customer support work (through a ticketing system or a realtime chat service) when issues arise with payments or with clueless customers failing to understand how to use the service.

In one interview with a former administrator of a booter service, the proprietor told researchers he quit and went on with a normal life after getting tired of dealing with customers who took for granted all the grunt work needed to keep the service running. From the interview:

“And after doing [it] for almost a year, I lost all motivation, and really didn’t care anymore. So I just left and went on with life. It wasn’t challenging enough at all. Creating a stresser is easy. Providing the power to run it is the tricky part. And when you have to put all your effort, all your attention. When you have to sit in front of a computer screen and scan, filter, then filter again over 30 amps per 4 hours it gets annoying.”

The researchers note that this burnout is an important feature of customer support work, “which is characterized less by a progressive disengagement with a once-interesting activity, and more by the gradual build-up of boredom and disenchantment, once the low ceiling of social and financial capital which can be gained from this work is reached.”

WHINY CUSTOMERS

Running a malware-as-a-service offering also can take its toll on developers, who quickly find themselves overwhelmed with customer support requests and negative feedback when a well-functioning service has intermittent outages.

Indeed, the author of the infamous ZeuS Trojan — a powerful password stealing tool that paved the way for hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from hacked businesses — is reputed to have quit the job and released the source code for the malware (thus spawning an entire industry of malware-as-a-service offerings) mainly to focus his skills on less tedious work than supporting hundreds of customers.

“While they may sound glamorous, providing these cybercrime services require the same levels of boring, routine work as is needed for many non-criminal enterprises, such as system administration, design, maintenance, customer service, patching, bug-fixing, account-keeping, responding to sales queries, and so on,” the report continues.

To some degree, the ZeuS’s author experience may not be the best example, because his desire to get away from supporting hundreds of customers ultimately led to his focusing attention and resources on building a far more sophisticated malware threat — the peer-to-peer based Gameover malware that he leased to a small group of organized crime groups.

Likewise, the cover story in this month’s Wired magazine profiles Marcus Hutchins, who said he “quickly grew bored with his botnets and his hosting service, which he found involved placating a lot of ‘whiny customers.’ So he quit and began to focus on something he enjoyed far more: perfecting his own malware.”

BORING THEM OUT OF BUSINESS

Cambridge’s Clayton and his colleagues argue the last two examples are more the exception than the rule, and that their research points to important policy implications for fighting cybercrime that are often discounted or overlooked: Namely, interventions that focus on the economics of attention and boredom, and on making such work as laborious and boring as possible.

Many cybersecurity experts often remark that taking down domain names and other infrastructure tied to cybercrime businesses amounts to little more than a game of whack-a-mole, because the perpetrators simply move somewhere else to resume their operations. But the Cambridge researchers note that each takedown creates further repetitive, tedious, work for the administrators to set up their sites anew.

“Recent research shows that the booter market is particularly susceptible to interventions targeted at this infrastructural work, which make the jobs of these server managers more boring and more risky,” the researchers note.

The paper takes care to note that its depictions of the ‘boredom’ of the untrained administrative work carried out in the illicit economy should not be taken as impugning the valuable and complex work of legitimate system administrators. “Rather, it is to recognize that this is a different kind of knowledge and set of skills from engineering work, which needs to be taught, learned, and managed differently.”

The authors conclude that refocusing interventions in this way might also be supported by changes to the predominant forms of messaging used by law enforcement and policy professionals around cybercrime:

“If participation within these economies is in fact based in deviant aspiration rather than deviant experience, the currently dominant approaches to messaging, which tend to focus on the dangerous and harmful nature of these behaviors, the high levels of technical skill possessed by cybercrime actors, the large amounts of money made in illicit online economies, and the risk of detection, arrest, and prosecution are potentially counterproductive, only feeding the aspiration which drives this work. Conversely, by emphasizing the tedious, low-skilled, low-paid, and low-status reality of much of this work, messaging could potentially dissuade those involved in deviant online subcultures from making the leap from posting on forums to committing low-level crime.”

“Additionally, diversionary interventions that emphasize the shortage of sysadmin and ‘pen tester’ workers in the legitimate economy (“you could be paid really good money for doing the same things in a proper job”) need to recognize that pathways, motivations, and experiences may be rather more prosaic than might be expected.”

“Conceptualizing cybercrime actors as high-skilled, creative adolescents with a deep love for and understanding of technology may in fact mischaracterize most of the people on whom these markets depend, who are often low-skilled administrators who understand fairly little about the systems they maintain and administer, and whose approach is more akin to the practical knowledge of the maintainer than the systematic knowledge of a software engineer or security researcher. Finding all these bored people appropriate jobs in the legitimate economy may be as much about providing basic training as about parachuting superstars into key positions.”

Further reading: Cybercrime is (often) Boring: Maintaining the Infrastructure of Cybercrime Economies (PDF).

The United Kingdom’s anti-cybercrime agency is running online ads aimed at young people who search the Web for services that enable computer crimes, specifically trojan horse programs and DDoS-for-hire services. The ad campaign follows a similar initiative launched in late 2017 that academics say measurably dampened demand for such services by explaining that their use to harm others is illegal and can land potential customers in jail.

For example, search in Google for the terms “booter” or “stresser” from a U.K. Internet address, and there’s a good chance you’ll see a paid ad show up on the first page of results warning that using such services to attack others online is illegal. The ads are being paid for by the U.K.’s National Crime Agency, which saw success with a related campaign for six months starting in December 2017.

NCA Senior Manager David Cox said the agency is targeting its ads to U.K. males age 13 to 22 who are searching for booter services or different types of remote access trojans (RATs), as part of an ongoing effort to help steer young men away from cybercrime and toward using their curiosity and skills for good. The ads link to advertorials and to the U.K.’s Cybersecurity Challenge, which tries gamify computer security concepts and highlight potential careers in cybersecurity roles.

“The fact is, those standing in front of a classroom teaching children have less information about cybercrime than those they’re trying to teach,” Cox said, noting that the campaign is designed to support so-called “knock-and-talk” visits, where investigators visit the homes of young people who’ve downloaded malware or purchased DDoS-for-hire services to warn them away from such activity. “This is all about showing people there are other paths they can take.”

While it may seem obvious to the casual reader that deploying some malware-as-a-service or using a booter to knock someone or something offline can land one in legal hot water, the typical profile of those who frequent these services is young, male, impressionable and participating in online communities of like-minded people in which everyone else is already doing it.

In 2017, the NCA published “Pathways into Cyber Crime,” a report that drew upon interviews conducted with a number of young men who were visited by U.K. law enforcement agents in connection with various cybercrime investigations.

Those findings, which the NCA said came about through knock-and-talk interviews with a number of suspected offenders, found that 61 percent of suspects began engaging in criminal hacking before the age of 16, and that the average age of suspects and arrests of those involved in hacking cases was 17 years old.

The majority of those engaged in, or on the periphery of, cyber crime, told the NCA they became involved via an interest in computer gaming.

A large proportion of offenders began to participate in gaming cheat websites and “modding” forums, and later progressed to criminal hacking forums.

The NCA learned the individuals visited had just a handful of primary motivations in mind, including curiosity, overcoming a challenge, or proving oneself to a larger group of peers. According to the report, a typical offender faces a perfect storm of ill-boding circumstances, including a perceived low risk of getting caught, and a perception that their offenses in general amounted to victimless crimes.

“Law enforcement activity does not act as a deterrent, as individuals consider cyber crime to be low risk,” the NCA report found. “Debrief subjects have stated that they did not consider law enforcement until someone they knew or had heard of was arrested. For deterrence to work, there must be a closing of the gap between offender (or potential offender) with law enforcement agencies functioning as a visible presence for these individuals.”

Cox said the NCA will continue to run the ads indefinitely, and that it is seeking funding from outside sources — including major companies in online gaming industry, whose platforms are perhaps the most targeted by DDoS-for-hire services. He called the program a “great success,” noting that in the past 30 days (13 of which the ads weren’t running for funding reasons), the ads generated some 5.32 million impressions, and more than 57,000 clicks.

FLATTENING THE CURVE

Richard Clayton is director of the University of Cambridge Cybercrime Centre, which has been monitoring DDoS attacks for several years using a variety of sensors across the Internet that pretend to be the types of systems which are typically commandeered and abused to help launch such assaults.

Last year, Clayton and fellow Cambridge researchers published a paper showing that law enforcement interventions — including the NCA’s anti-DDoS ad campaign between 2017 and 2018 — demonstrably slowed the growth in demand for DDoS-for-hire services.

“Our data shows that by running that ad campaign, the NCA managed to flatten out demand for booter services over that period,” Clayton said. “In other words, the demand for these services didn’t grow over the period as we would normally see, and we didn’t see more people doing it at the end of the period than at the beginning. When we showed this to the NCA, they were ever so pleased, because that campaign cost them less than ten thousand [pounds sterling] and it stopped this type of cybercrime from growing for six months.”

Clayton said part of the problem is that many booter/stresser providers claim they’re offering lawful services, and many of their would-be customers are all too eager to believe this is true. Also, the price point is affordable: A typical booter service will allow customers to launch fairly high-powered DDoS attacks for just a few dollars per month.

“There are legitimate companies that provide these types of services in a legal manner, but there are all types of agreements that have to be in place before this can happen,” Clayton said. “And you don’t get that for ten bucks a month.”

DON’T BE EVIL

The NCA’s ad campaign is competing directly with Google ads taken out by many of the same people running these DDoS-for-hire services. It may surprise some readers to learn that cybercrime services often advertise on Google and other search sites much like any legitimate business would — paying for leads that might attract new customers.

Several weeks back, KrebsOnSecurity noticed that searching for “booter” or “stresser” in Google turned up paid ads for booter services prominently on the first page of results. But as I noted in a tweet about the finding, this is hardly a new phenomenon.

Cambridge’s Clayton pointed me to a blog post he wrote in 2018 about the prevalence of such ads, which violate Google’s policies on acceptable advertisements via its platform. Google says it doesn’t allow ads for services that “cause damage, harm or injury,” and that they don’t allow adverts for services that “are designed to enable dishonest behavior.”

Clayton said Google eventually took down the offending ads. But as my few seconds of Googling revealed, the company appears to have decided to play wack-a-mole when people complain, instead of expressly prohibiting the placement of (and payment for) ads with these terms.

Google told KrebsOnSecurity that it relies on a combination of technology and people to enforce its policies.

“We have strict ad policies designed to protect users on our platforms,” Google said in a written statement. “We prohibit ads that enable dishonest behavior, including services that look to take advantage of or cause harm to users. When we find an ad that violates our policies we take action. In this case, we quickly removed the ads.”

Google pointed to a recent blog post detailing its enforcement efforts in this regard, which said in 2019 the company took down more than 2.7 billion ads that violated its policies — or more than 10 million ads per day — and that it removed a million advertiser accounts for the same reason.

The ad pictured above ceased to appear shortly after my outreach to them. Unfortunately, an ad for a different booter service (shown below) soon replaced the one they took down.

A group of Romanians operating an ATM company in Mexico and suspected of bribing technicians to install sophisticated Bluetooth-based skimmers in cash machines throughout several top Mexican tourist destinations have enjoyed legal protection from a top anti-corruption official in the Mexican attorney general’s office, according to a new complaint filed with the government’s internal affairs division.

As detailed this week by the Mexican daily Reforma, several Mexican federal, state and municipal officers filed a complaint saying the attorney general office responsible for combating corruption had initiated formal proceedings against them for investigating Romanians living in Mexico who are thought to be part of the ATM skimming operation.

Reforma said the complaint centers on Camilo Constantino Rivera, who heads the unit in the Mexican Special Prosecutor’s office responsible for fighting corruption. It alleges Rivera has an inherent conflict of interest because his brother has served as a security escort and lawyer for Floridan Tudor, the reputed boss of a Romanian crime syndicate recently targeted by the FBI for running an ATM skimming and human trafficking network that operates throughout Mexico and the United States.

Tudor, a.k.a. “Rechinu” or “The Shark,” and his ATM company Intacash, were the subject of a three part investigation by KrebsOnSecurity published in September 2015. That series tracked the activities of a crime gang which was rumored to be bribing and otherwise coercing ATM technicians into installing Bluetooth-based skimming devices inside cash machines throughout popular tourist destinations in and around Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula — including Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen and Tulum.

In 2018, 44-year-old Romanian national Sorinel Constantin Marcu was found shot dead in his car in Mexico. Marcu’s older brother told KrebsOnSecurity shortly after the murder that his brother was Tudor’s personal bodyguard but at some point had a falling out with Tudor and his associates over money. Marcu the elder said his brother was actually killed in front of a new apartment complex being built and paid for by Mr. Tudor, and that the dead man’s body was moved to make it look like he was slain in his car instead.

On March 31, 2019, police in Cancun, Mexico arrested 42-year-old Tudor and 37-year-old Adrian Nicholae Cosmin for the possession of an illegal firearm and cash totaling nearly 500,000 pesos (~USD $26,000) in both American and Mexican denominations. Two months later, a judge authorized the search of several of Tudor’s properties.

The Reforma report says Rivera’s office subsequently initiated proceedings against and removed several agents who investigated the crime ring, alleging those agents abused their authority and conducted illegal searches. The complaint against Rivera charges that the criminal protection racket also included the former chief of police in Cancun.

In September 2019, prosecutors with the Southern District of New York unsealed indictments and announced arrests against 18 people accused of running an ATM skimming and money laundering operation that netted $20 million. The defendants in that case — nearly all of whom are Romanians living in the United States and Mexico — included Florian Claudio Martin, described by Romanian newspapers as “the brother of Rechinu,” a.k.a. Tudor.

The news comes on the heels of a public relations campaign launched by Mr. Tudor, who recently denounced harassment from the news media and law enforcement by taking out a full two-page ad in Novedades, the oldest daily newspaper in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo (where Cancun is located). In a news conference with members of the local press, Tudor also reportedly accused this author of having been hired by his enemies to slander him and ruin his legitimate business.

Obviously, there is no truth to Tudor’s accusations, and this would hardly be the first time the reputed head of a transnational crime syndicate has insinuated that I was paid by his enemies to disrupt his operations.

Next week, KrebsOnSecurity will publish highlights from an upcoming lengthy investigation into Tudor and his company by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a consortium of investigative journalists operating in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Central America.

Here’s a small teaser: Earlier this year, I was interviewed on camera by reporters with the OCCRP, who at one point in the discussion handed me a transcript of some text messages shared by law enforcement officials that allegedly occurred between Tudor and his associates directly after the publication of my 2015 investigation into Intacash.

The text messages suggested my story had blown the cover off their entire operation, and that they intended to shut it all down after the series was picked up in the Mexican newspapers. One text exchange seems to indicate the group even briefly contemplated taking out a hit on this author in retribution.

The Mexican attorney general’s office could not be immediately reached for comment. The “contact us” email link on the office’s homepage leads to a blank email address, and a message sent to the one email address listed there as the main contact for the Mexican government portal (gobmx@funcionpublica.gob.mx) bounced back as an attempt to deliver to a non-existent domain name.

Further reading:

Alleged Chief of Romanian ATM Skimming Gang Arrested in Mexico

Tracking a Bluetooth Skimmer Gang in Mexico

Tracking a Bluetooth Skimmer Gang in Mexico, Part II

Who’s Behind Bluetooth Skimming in Mexico?