A 33-year-old Russian-born man was sentenced to 14 years in prison Thursday for his role in a cyber crime ring that defrauded individuals and banks of millions of dollars through hacking and identity theft, the United States Department of Justice announced today .

Roman Valeryevich Seleznev—also known by his online handles Track2, Bulba and Ncux—was sentenced in federal court after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of participation in a racketeering enterprise. He was also ordered to pay more than $52 million in restitution.

The prison time will run concurrent to another prison sentence given to Seleznev for charges of wire fraud and computer hacking. A federal jury convicted the 33-year-old on 38 counts related to his role in a scheme to hack retail computers to steal and sell credit card numbers. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison for those charges.

Seleznev, who originally pleaded not guilty before accepting a plea agreement and pleading guilty, admitted to having a role in the Carder.su organization, an identity theft and credit card fraud ring that operated primarily online.

According to the United States Department of Justice, Carder.su was a sizable online crime syndicate that trafficked in compromised credit card information and stolen and counterfeit identities. The criminal collective regularly committed identity theft, bank fraud and computer crimes.

Seleznev admitted to having a role in the organization dating back to 2009. According to the plea agreement, Seleznev admitted the group communicated with one another through private channels in order to avoid law enforcement and rival organizations, with members interacting primarily through private forums and encrypted messaging services and emails.

The group also used proxies—intermediary services that can be used to obscure the location and identity of users when communicating with websites—and virtual private networks to hide their identities. The secretive criminal group required new members get a recommendation from two current members to gain approval.

Seleznev admitted during his time with Carder.su that he sold compromised credit card account information and other stolen personal information to other members of the group. He reportedly was trafficking such a large volume of information that he created an automated website that would allow other Carder.su members to login and purchase data from him.

The website allowed other criminals to login, search for the particular type of credit card information they wanted to buy and add the number of accounts they wanted to purchase to their shopping cart—just like any other ecommerce site. Once the criminal went to check out, they would pay for the data and it would instantly become available to download.

According to Seleznev, each account was sold for approximately $20. The actions of Carder.su members who purchased the stolen information resulted in losses of at least $50,983,166.35 for victims, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Russian hacker also admitted to acting as a “casher,” working with hackers to coordinate an effort to defraud an Atlanta-based company that handles the processing of credit card transactions for financial institutions.

As part of that scheme, carried out in 2008, hackers broke into the company’s computer systems and accessed more than 45 million credit card numbers. Those cards were used to fraudulently withdraw more than $9.4 million from 2,1000 ATMs in 280 cities around the world in just 2 hours.

Seleznev is just the latest member of the Carder.su organization to be caught by law enforcement. A total of 55 individuals have been charged as part of an ongoing crackdown on the crime syndicate, with 33 of those members having been convicted.

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