Game over, man: Microsoft test engineer who laundered stolen Xbox credits into $10m guilty of fraud A former Microsoft software engineer who screwed over his bosses to pocket $10m was found guilty of fraud yesterday. Volodymyr Kvashuk, 25, was collared in mid-2019 following a probe that began in early 2018 when Microsoft's Fraud Investigation Strike Team (FIST) spotted an unusual spike in Xbox subscriptions bought using the …
No, of course not. He bought a $1.6m house under constraint.
This guy is proof is that you don't have to be a genius to rip people off. It's also proof that you'd better be smart enough to avoid associating your own name in any way with funds that been obtained illegally.
He should have paid more attention to money laundering processes. But that takes time, and the money was right there.
And now he's going down for twenty. Serves him right for spouting such nonsense. "Oh, Your Honor, I didn't do it on purpose. For months. By exploiting test code I had access to."
Moron.
"Criminal intelligence" vs "Real intelligence".
Those who are criminally minded can have genius-level IQ, and even reason things out logically and "intelligently", minus that ONE detail: they think like CRIMINALS.
As a hacker, I think like a hacker. Being white-hat, I dedicate that thinking to security and good design principles. I assume that many people can "think like a criminal" (especially in law enforcement) and catch these people. But I've known a couple of people who have this kind of "criminal mindset". You can't get them to apply their intelligence to anything REASONABLE. They'll ALWAYS be looking for a way to do some kind of scam or rip-off or outright EMBEZZLEMENT in lieu of working hard and getting money the honest way...
That's an incredible and reckless rate of siphoning out money. I would be suspicions if my canteen till had £100 of coupons in it rather than hard-cash so it's not surprising Microsoft spotted something was amiss.
Once again, another criminal undone by greed and failing to follow the guiding principle of "hit hard, get out, and get gone".
To be honest, 20 years? He may serve 10. Depending on how much money he has managed to hide well enough that it can't be reclaimed I wonder if he may come out of 10 years of living for free to leave the country and live the easy life off 10 years of interest on investments he made with the ill-gotten cash?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
