Russian national sentenced to 40 months in prison for selling stolen credentials

Georgy Kavzharadze, a 27-year-old Russian man, got caught selling approximately 300,000 login credentials, financial information, and other personally identifiable information (PII).

Between July 2016 and May 2021, Kavzharadze, also known online as ‘TeRorPP’, ‘Torqovec’, and ‘PlutuSS’, listed over 626,100 stolen login credentials on Slilpp, an illegal internet marketplace. In that period he sold over 297,300 credentials, earning $1.2 million in fraudulent transactions.

Cybercriminals who bought the login data, were able to access banks located in New York, California, Nevada, and Georgia. Kavzharadze, who wanted to be paid in Bitcoin, withdrew more than $200,000 in profits from his Bitcoin account.

In June 2021, the FBI and law enforcement agencies from Germany, the Netherlands, and Romania, took down the Slilpp infrastructure by seizing the servers and domain names that hosted the illegal online marketplace. Officers got their hands on historical information about Slilpp vendors, customers, and financial transactions.

Right before Slilpp was taken down, the marketplace listed over 80 million stolen login credentials belonging to more than 1,400 companies and organizations worldwide.

“With today’s coordinated disruption of the Slilpp marketplace, the FBI and our international partners sent a clear message to those who, as alleged, would steal and traffic in stolen identities: we will not allow cyber threats to go unchecked,” Acting U.S. Attorney of the District of Columbia Channing Phillips said at the time.

In August 2021, Kavzharadze was extradited to the United States and charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft. In February 2024, the Russian national pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wired fraud.

Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Kavzharadze to 40 months in prison. Furthermore, he has to pay $1,233,521.47 in restitution.