Eight indicted by FBI in major ad fraud case
It is believed that this case is twice as big as that of the Russian ad fraud case Methbot, detected by Whiteops in 2016
The United States Department of Justice has announced that it has moved to dismantle two major fraud networks thereby revealing a 13-count indictment to charge criminal violations, according to media reports.
Reports state that the indictments charge Aleksandr Zhukov, Boris Timokhin, Mikhail Andreev, Denis Avdeev, Dmitry Novikov, Sergey Ovsyannikov, Aleksandr Isaev and Yevgeniy Timchenko with criminal violations for being involved in the ad fraud, now called 3ve.
The charges follow an industry task force comprising Google, Whiteops and other industry players, such as The TradeDesk and Oath, alongside federal investigators, submitting the details of what they suspected was a major ad-fraud operation. The group then conducted a covert operation to track and gather evidence for over a year and has now resulted in the dismantling of the fraud network.
A Brooklyn court also issued seizure warrants enabling the FBI to take control of 31 internet domains, and search warrants authorizing the FBI to collect information from 89 computer servers. According to reports, these warrants were necessary to take down the infrastructure that was allowing the botnets to carry out the fraudulent activity.
It is believed that this case is twice as big as that of the Russian ad fraud case Methbot, detected by Whiteops in 2016 and it is estimated that ad fraud cost the industry $16.4bn in 2017 alone. The industry has come together to examine the issue, partnering with organisations such as the Trustworthy Action Group (TAG) and the IAB which launched its tech response ads.txt with an aim to tackle part of the issue.
It has also been reported that the government plans to seize funds and assets connected to the case, such as bank accounts in Switzerland.
