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Pavel Kublitskii and Alexandr Khodyrev have been charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
A pair of men arrested last month for their alleged role in running a cyber crime forum focused on credit card fraud have been officially charged.
Kazakhstan national 35-year-old Alex Khodyrev and 37-year-old Russian national Pavel Kublitskii have each been charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
If convicted, the pair face a maximum jail term of 20 years.
Sports cars belonging to the men have been forfeited as the FBI believes they were bought with the proceeds of crime.
“According to the indictment, between 2014 and 2024, Khodyrev and Kublitskii served as two of the main administrators of [WWH Club] and several sister websites, all of which were dark web marketplaces, forums, and training centres that existed solely to facilitate crime,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said in a 6 September statement.
“WWH Club and sister site members used the marketplaces to buy and sell stolen personal identifying information (PII), credit card and bank account information, and computer passwords, among other sensitive information.”
Khodyrev and Kublitskii were arrested in early August following a years-long investigation by the FBI. An undercover agent joined the forum in 2023 – after it had first come to the agency’s attention in 2020 – and paid US$1,000 to attend a training course on how to commit credit card fraud and even bought several sets of stolen personal data.
The FBI described WWH as “like a cross between eBay and Reddit”. It offered a wide range of criminal services while also providing users with “resources to assist individuals in using stolen credit card information and PII to make purchases and generate revenue”, according to the affidavit.
The FBI’s investigation led to nearly 100 search warrants executed against emails linked to WWH Club, which in turn led to Khodyrev and Kublitskii – who had been granted asylum in the US in 2022.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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