28/08/2026
US indicts three for “breathtaking” financial cyber fraud
US prosecutors have indicted three people for one of the largest cyber fraudulence in the country’s history. It had led to the leak of large number of personal data and generated millions of dollars in illegal profits from a dozen of big companies including JPMorgan and Dow Jones & Co. between 2012 and 2015.
Gery Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron and Ziv Orenstein were charged in a 23-count indictment with alleged crimes against 12 companies, including financial institutions and media, the US federal prosecutor announced on Tuesday.
Shalon and Orenstein, both from Israel, were arrested in Israel in July while Aaron, a US citizen, was believed to be living in Moscow as a fugitive.
The men had manipulated dozens of publicly traded stocks in what is usually called pump-and-dump investment scam tactic. They had also hacked and released false and misleading information via the stolen email accounts. Shalon is identified as the instigator behind the hackings in which personal data of
100 million customers were stolen in 2007.
US Attorney Preet Bharara said at a press conference that the scale of data breaches at these firms was “breathtaking” and represents a “brave new world of hacking for profit.”
According to the indictment, with the help from corrupt officials inside international banks, the alleged enterprise also extended to online casinos, payment processing for criminals, an illegal bitcoin exchange and money laundering through at least 75 shell companies and accounts around the world.
They are also charged for stealing a record number of personal information from the 2014 JPMorgan cyber-attack. According to prosecutors, accounts details belonging to more than 83 million customers of international bank were stolen,which is the largest information theft from a US financial institution.
Other institutions falling victims include Fidelity Investments, the Wall Street Journal and brokerages E*Trade Financial Corp.
