2 Israelis in JPMorgan Chase cyber fraud case to be extradited
Published May 9, 2016
(JTA) — Two Israelis indicted in a massive cyber attack against JPMorgan Chase will be extradited to the United States.
Gery Shalon, 32, and Ziv Orenstein, 41, were arrested in Israel in July and will be extradited following a U.S. request, Israel’s Justice Ministry announced Monday, Agence France Press reported.
The ministry did not say exactly when the two, who are accused of participating in one of the largest computer frauds ever, will be extradited.
Shalon and Orenstein were among four people, three of them Jewish, indicted in the computer hacking scheme that compromised data from millions of customers of JPMorgan Chase and other firms. The other Jew indicted is Joshua Samuel, an American who has lived in Moscow and Tel Aviv.
The indictments of the four in U.S. District Court in Manhattan were made public in November. The 23-count indictment encompasses the Chase hack along with numerous alleged crimes targeting 12 other companies, including nine financial service companies and The Wall Street Journal.
Prosecutors said the three had been working together since 2007 and their crimes include artificially inflating stock prices, an illegal bitcoin exchange, operating online casinos and creating at least 75 shell companies around the world.
“By any measure, the data breaches at these firms were breathtaking in scope and in size,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a news conference in November.
The JPMorgan attack compromised 83 million customer accounts and was the largest theft of customer data from an American financial institution.
The charges depict Shalon as the leader of the group.