U.S. charges Florida man in case linked
to JPMorgan hacking probe
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[November 11, 2016]
By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Florida man is the
latest individual to face criminal charges in connection with what U.S.
prosecutors say was an illegal bitcoin exchange owned by an Israeli
accused of being behind hacking attacks on companies including JPMorgan
Chase & Co.
Ricardo Hill, 38, was arrested last month in Florida and charged in a
criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan with conspiring
to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.
A federal magistrate granted Hill's release on Thursday on a $75,000
bond following a court appearance in Manhattan, court records show. A
lawyer for Hill declined to comment.
Hill, a resident of Brandon, Florida, is one of nine people to face
charges following an investigation connected to a data breach that
JPMorgan disclosed in 2014 involving records for more than 83 million
accounts.
According to court papers, the charges stemmed from Hill's employment as
a finance support manager and business development consultant for an
unlicensed bitcoin exchange called Coin.mx.
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Prosecutors have said Coin.mx was operated by another Florida man,
Anthony Murgio, and owned by Gery Shalon, an Israeli accused of
orchestrating a massive hacking scheme involving JPMorgan and other
companies.
Prosecutors contend Shalon along with another Israeli, Ziv Orenstein,
and an American, Joshua Samuel Aaron, ran a criminal enterprise that
hacked into a dozen companies' networks, stealing the personal
information of over 100 million customers.
While Hill and Murgio were not accused of roles in the hacking offenses,
prosecutors said they committed crimes linked to the operation of
Coin.mx, which exchanged millions of dollars of the virtual currency
bitcoin for customers.
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![](../images/111116pics/news_k19.jpg)
A view of the exterior of the JP Morgan Chase & Co. corporate
headquarters in New York City May 20, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Segar/Files
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The complaint against Hill said that he and others profited from
numerous bitcoin transactions conducted on behalf of victims of
schemes involving ransomware, which locks up computer systems and
then demands payments to remove the restriction.
To date, two individuals have pleaded guilty in connection with the
Coin.mx case. Murgio and two other men have pleaded not guilty and
are scheduled to face trial in February.
Shalon and Orenstein pleaded not guilty following their extradition
from Israel in June. Aaron is currently in Russia.
The case is U.S. v. Hill, U.S. District Court, Southern District of
New York, No. 16-mj-6437.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York)
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