A pastor from New Jersey was indicted over bribery scheme allegations on a bitcoin exchange in connection to JPMorgan Chase Co. and other companies system hacking. The pastor allegedly received bribes to allow illegal bitcoin exchange to access credit union.
According to Reuters, Trevon Gross, a New Jersey pastor was charged on Thursday to the said crime. The 46 year old former chairman of the Helping Other People Excel Federal Credit Union of Jackson in New Jersey is accused to have accepted a bribe of $150,000 from Anthony Murgio. Murgion is the operator of an unlicensed bitcoin exchange, Coin.mx. It was also reported, Gross accepted bribes from Yuri Lebedev, who supervise the computer programming functions of the exchange transaction.
According to the prosecutors, they intended "to operate the credit union as a captive bank and evade potential scrutiny of Coin.mx." The unlicensed bitcoin exchange is owned by an Israeli national, Gery Shalon, who was accused of orchestrating a massive hacking scheme, Yahoo News reported.
Shalon, along with his fellow Israeli man, Ziv Orenstein, and Joshua Samuel Aaron, an American who is operating a "criminal enterprise" which hacked a number of companies' system and steal personal information of over 100 million people. Among the companies affected by the cyber attack included JPMorgan, TruNews reported.
Some of the stolen accounts recovered were from 83 million customers of the said company. The defendants include, Murgio, Lebedev, and Gross were not charged relating to hacking offenses. However, they are charged with operating unlicensed bitcoin exchange.
The pastor surrenders himself on Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday morning and is set to be arraigned on Friday. While Murgio and Lebedev, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, are schedule to appear on trial on October 31.
The U.S. described a vast, multi-year criminal enterprise centering on hacks of at least nine big financial and publishing firms. The cyber attack resulted to stock manipulation, credit-card fraud and illegal online casinos.
