Three Alleged International Cyber Criminals Charged for Creating & Distributing the Gozi Virus

Three Alleged International Cyber Criminals Charged for Creating & Distributing the Gozi Virus

NEW YORK, NY -- U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, and FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos announce charges against three individuals who played critical roles in creating and distributing the Gozi Virus, one of the most financially destructive computer viruses in history. The Gozi Virus infected over one million computers globally and caused tens of millions of dollars in losses. Nikita Kuzmin, a Russian national who created the Gozi Virus, was arrested in the U.S. in November 2010 and pled guilty before U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand to various computer intrusion and fraud charges in May 2011. Deniss Calovskis, a/k/a "Miami," a Latvian national who allegedly wrote some of the computer code that made the Gozi Virus so effective, was arrested in Latvia in November 2012. Mihai Ionut Paunescu, a/k/a "Virus," a Romanian national who allegedly ran a "bulletproof hosting" service that enabled cyber criminals to distribute the Gozi Virus, the Zeus Trojan and other notorious malware, and conduct other sophisticated cyber crimes, was arrested in Romania in December 2012.