Volodymyr Kvashuk, a former Microsoft software engineer from Ukraine, is sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing more than $ 10 million over two years.
Kvashuk used Microsoft Store test accounts while he was part of the company’s global store team to steal $ 10 million worth of stored currency CSV from Microsoft’s online store via unauthorized purchases of products.
Microsoft’s fraud control team, FIST, discovered its plan in February 2018, after noticing a suspicious increase in Xbox Live subscriptions purchased using stored value currency, including gift cards.
The stored value currency was stolen between August 26, 2016 and June 22, 2018, when it was fired, and then resold at a discount in online markets via at least two retailers, nokeys.com and g2a.com.
These third parties were then able to recover the stored value and purchase digital and physical goods from Microsoft.
The software giant was able to include only about $ 1.8 million of the valuable currency stored in the blacklist to be recovered after it sold Kvashok to its customers, which represents a total financial loss of about $ 8.3 million.
Kvashuk then used the services of chipmixer.com to hide the origin of the money he obtained after selling the stolen stored value, as well as by purchasing Bitcoin with Xbox gift cards via the Paxful cryptocurrency exchange.
Kvashuk was able to transfer nearly $ 2.8 million of Bitcoin into his investment and bank accounts, and the funds were later disguised as gifts from his relatives in fraudulent tax return forms.
In March 2018, Kvashuk bought a Tesla for about $ 162,000, while in June 2018 he paid about $ 1.675 million for a home.
After initially using his demo account to acquire the valuable currency illegally stored, Kvashuk turned to accounts some of his colleagues created to hide his tracks and direct future investigations to the wrong people.
A press release issued by the Ministry of Justice said: Kvachuk initially stole small sums, totaling about $ 12,000, using access to his own account.
With the stolen value reaching millions of dollars, Kvashok has used experimental email accounts linked to other employees, the statement added.
Prosecutors said: Kvachuk’s scheme included lies and deceit at every step, and he compromised his colleagues by using their demo accounts to steal the stored value currency.
Besides having to spend nine years in prison for 18 separate federal felonies related to his fraudulent scheme, and his requirement to pay $ 8.3 million in damages, Kvashok may also be deported after his prison term.
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