Djevair Ametovski was sentenced to 90 months in prison for operating an international cybercrime marketplace named Codeshop.

Macedonian national Djevair Ametovski (32) was sentenced to 90 months in prison by US DoJ authorities for operating an international cybercrime marketplace named Codeshop.

Codeshop.su was a website that specialized in selling stolen payment card data. Ametovski acquired payment card data from hackers who had stolen it from financial institutions and individuals.

According to the investigators, the man commercialized data of 181,000 payment cards between 2010 and 2014.

Ametovski (known online as Codeshop, Sindromx, xhevo, and Sindrom) was arrested by Slovenian authorities in January 2014, at the time he was charged with aggravated identity theft, access device fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy. The Macedonian citizen was extradited to the United States in May 2016.

The man pleaded guilty to access device fraud and aggravated identity theft, he was also ordered to forfeit $250,000 and pay restitution that will be determined later.

Codeshop customers were able to buy stolen card data searching for specific types of data based on criteria such as country, bank, and bank identification number.

“The stolen data could then be used to make online purchases and to encode plastic cards to withdraw cash at ATMs.” reads the press release the Justice Department.

“Ametovski used a network of online money exchangers and anonymous digital currencies, including Bitcoin, to reap revenues from the Codeshop website and to conceal all participants’ identities, including his own. Over the course of the scheme, Ametovski obtained and sold stolen credit and debit card data for more than 1.3 million cards,” said the Justice Department.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Codeshop, carding)