Georgy Kavzharadze, a 27-year-old Russian national, has been sentenced to 40 months in prison for his role as a prolific vendor of stolen financial information, login credentials, and other personally identifiable information (PII) on the criminal internet marketplace Slilpp.
Kavzharadze, also known as “George” and by his online monikers “TeRorPP,” “Torqovec,” and “PlutuSS,” pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud in February 2024.
A Brief History of Slilpp and the Investigation
Slilpp, an online marketplace for stolen login credentials, had been operating since 2012, selling usernames and passwords for various online accounts, including bank accounts, online payment accounts, and mobile phone accounts. The platform allowed vendors to sell and customers to buy stolen login credentials, facilitating unauthorized transactions worth millions of dollars.
In June 2021, the FBI, in collaboration with international law enforcement partners, conducted a coordinated operation to disrupt the Slilpp marketplace. During this operation, the FBI seized the platform’s infrastructure and domain names, effectively dismantling the operation. The database of the marketplace contained a wealth of information about vendors, customers, and transactions, including subscriber and payment details.
Kavzharadze’s Involvement in Slilpp
The coordinated efforts of law enforcement agencies, both domestic and international, have successfully disrupted the Slilpp marketplace and held Kavzharadze accountable for his role in this extensive fraud scheme.
Kavzharadze, using the alias “TeRorPP,” listed over 626,100 stolen login credentials for sale on Slilpp between 2016 and 2021, selling more than 297,300 of them. His activities were linked to over $1.2 million in fraudulent transactions. The login credentials included access to accounts with banks in New York, California, Nevada, and Georgia, and were sold for Bitcoin.
An FBI analysis connected Kavzharadze to withdrawals of over $200,000 in Slilpp profits from his Bitcoin account.
On August 24, 2021, Kavzharadze was charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, bank fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft. He was subsequently extradited to the United States, and his initial appearance occurred on May 18, 2022, in U.S. District Court. Kavzharadze has been detained since his extradition to the United States.
Kavzharadze was charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, bank fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft in August 2021. He was extradited to the United States and has been detained since his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in May 2022.
On top of his prison sentence, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered Kavzharadze to pay $1,233,521.47 in restitution. This conviction serves as a significant blow to the dark web’s cybercrime ecosystem and demonstrates the U.S. Department of Justice’s commitment to combating online threats to financial security.