A resident of India pleaded guilty today to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft charges arising from an international fraud scheme to “hack” into online brokerage accounts in the United States and use those accounts to manipulate stock prices, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Deborah K.R. Gilg…
Category: Financial Sector
Swiss Data Affair Could Pay Off Handsomely for Germany
The extent of tax evasion by a number of German citizens with Swiss bank accounts appears to be far wider than originally thought. As the German government prepares to fork out a considerable sum for a CD with information about Germans suspected of dodging taxes, a newspaper reports that tax authorities could recover up to…
Heartland Payment Systems and Visa Inc. Announce Acceptance Rate of Over 97 Percent for Data Security Breach Settlement Agreement
From the press release: Financial institutions representing more than 97 percent of eligible Visa-branded credit and debit cards have accepted the Alternative Recovery Offers they received pursuant to the settlement entered into by Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), Heartland Payment Systems® (NYSE: HPY) and Heartland’s sponsoring acquirers last month. This level of acceptance fulfills the 80 percent…
Why Germany Is Paying Millions in Ransom For Stolen Bank Data
Tristiana Moore reports: The announcement may have caused some super-rich Germans to tremble in their designer shoes. On Tuesday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble said the government has agreed to buy a computer CD from an anonymous informant that contains the stolen bank details of up to 1,500 people suspected of evading German taxes by…
Informant offers to sell names of tax dodgers (updated)
A secret informant has offered to sell the German taxman the names of 1,500 Germans who have funds hidden in Switzerland, a newspaper reported Saturday. The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said the unnamed whistleblower had supplied details of five accounts worth some €1 million ($1.4 million) in tax as proof and demanded €2.5 million for…
UK: Skipton faces fine for serious data breach
Jeff Prestridge reports: Skipton Building Society faces a heavy fine from the Financial Services Authority after a serious breach of data security procedures that resulted in more than 3,000 savers receiving financial details about other customers of the mutual. […] When Skipton mailed 108,000 account statements to savers last weekend, 3,115 went out with the…