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Journalism of Courage
Organized crime takes a modern turn, far removed of an era of bootleg liquor or drug lords and illegal video poker machines labeled deceptively “for fun only”. There is no small time muscle man waiting in a car who rolls down the black tinted windows with a not so nice warning or hit man ordered by the Godfather to “take care of it”. These type of hoodlums still exist but there is a far more sinister criminal injustice that wreaks havoc in large volumes with potential to cause global implications.It is this type of powerful capabilities we shutter at the mere thought of “what if”.
Computer hackers became prominent in the 1980’s when the FBI investigates breach of security at the National CSS. When an employee of the National CSS revealed his password cracker, the company chastised him not for writing the software but by no telling them sooner of the security weakness and vulnerability.
He shook the very foundation of the corporate world with his “business model” for the 21st century while building a cyber empire of destruction. His group spread through internet arteries that are considered some of the largest cyber-attacks including reaching for the jugular vein in the biggest bank breach in history. Syphoning information from 83 million customer accounts from JP Morgan Chase Bank including hackers linked to the group breaching financial institutions and banks, pilfering information on 100 million customers.
“The conduct alleged in this case showcases the brave new world of hacking for profit,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in an announcement on two of the indictments that laid out parts of the scheme.
“It is no longer hacking merely for a quick payout,” Bharara said. “It is hacking as a business model.”
In the ongoing US investigation, the security fraud plot caused destruction to several online Casinos sites accepting US players. Shalon along with partner Ziv Orenstein were later linked in a connection to Affactive and Revenue Jet groups as rumors spread rapidly at gambling forums. The groups were connected to On Bling, Grand Parker, Loco Panda, Classy Coin, Ruby Royal, Grand Macao, Slots of Fortune and Jackpot Grand. In total the two men owned 13 online casinos.
Complaints from players came pouring in on gambling forums resulting in attaching warnings to casino reviews. On one Casino affiliate site an email reply from the finance department at Classy Casino in regards to non-payment complaint had this to say:
“Dear X,
You are a valued customer and we appreciate your business.
We would like to inform you that after reviewing your user activity which is based on your deposits during last 30 days, your withdrawal request was not approved at this time.
Please be advised that according to our policy which can be viewed in our Terms and Conditions (#12), your future activity in the casino will affect your withdrawal requests.
We appreciate your cooperation and look forward to seeing you back at our casino soon!
Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Best regards,
Finance Department
Classy Coin Casino”
This was typical endless excuses to not pay players of legit withdrawals.
A rep from Revenue Jet had this to say in response to the overwhelming number of player complaints:
“I don’t know exactly who you are nor if you post on behalf of yourself or someone else, but you seem to be posting a lot of negative, potentially destructive posts intentionally and moderation seems to be needed here.”
“Every single post–be it in reply to a negative or positive resolutions–especially regarding The RJ casino group–seem to be negative. This behavior is unordinary and unacceptable, especially given that there’s now a team dedicated to help the members of the LCB forum.
“Some members here seem to appreciate our work and some don’t. Everyone are entitled to their opinions but it seems that you are spending too much time and energy scaring our players away for a reason not clear–so the forum moderators will look into this now.”
“You may be right and may be wrong, but I suggest you spend a minute thinking before you post as there are consequences to your actions, be it to you or those you post about.”
In July, 2015 all of the online Casinos closed down and exec director of the Gambling Portal Webmasters Association (GPWA) Michael Corfman received a notice Affactive was closing operations effective immediately. Corfman stated that all affiliate accounts “have been frozen including salaries and affiliate commissions.”
Shalon was also ruthless when it came to his rivals according to the government. He and his cronies allegedly hacked into other online gambling establishments to confiscate customer data and was responsible for the hack of two firms that supplied software to the casino platforms.
The government said that by 2012, Shalon became so destructive he orchestrated and engineered cyber-attacks to debilitate competitor gambling sites “in response to perceived misconduct” directed at his own casinos.
There were millions of dollars in revenue coming in from their world-wide organization and the group needed a resolution to processing and laundering cash according to prosecutors.
To resolve it Shalon and Orenstein along with others in their cyber crime spree took advantage of Shalon’s bitcoin-exchange company, Coin.mx. Transactions were processed and and their origins were hidden at the same time charging fees on every deal. Murgio, an ex-Florida State University student was arrested over the summer for operating Coin.mx.
The operation of money laundering was as complicated as other aspects of their entire operation. It involved using fake documents and aliases in at least 75 shell company accounts and to continually move gambling monies from account to account.
“The conduct alleged in this case also may signal next frontier in securities fraud, sophisticated hacking to steal material non-public information,” he said. The defendants discussed this “as the next stage of their sprawling criminal enterprise” Bharara said.
