BANGKOK — A Russian national identified as the mastermind of a transnational cybercrime ring was awaiting extradition Friday after his arrest in the capital.
Sergey Medvedev is wanted by American authorities for fraud amounting to over USD$530 million, most of it from credit cards. A joint effort between Thai and US authorities had been tracking Medvedev since last year, according to a police officer who participated in today’s raid.
“This is an operation by the [US] Department of Homeland Security that involves spontaneous [raids] in 14 countries,” Maj. Nattapol Rattanamongkol said. “The United States has requested assistance from Thai police, and the police commissioner ordered the Crime Suppression Division to work on this case in late 2017.”
Police commandos arrested Medvedev at a residence in the Bang Na area. Nattapol said Medvedev refused to talk to Thai police.
No American officials were involved in the raid, Nattapol said.
The Russian is listed as the admin of InFraud, a dark web marketplace selling stolen credit card info, malware and other tools to conduct identity theft.
While Nattapol said the ring involved more than 10,000 people worldwide, he had no information so far about Thai nationals working with the Russian.