A U.S. federal grand jury has indicted 17 people, among them a Russian-Ukrainian couple, as well as a corporation, for numerous Internet fraud crimes. More than 170 charges of identity theft, worldwide trafficking in stolen credit card numbers and other types of Internet crime were listed in the indictment. The charges result from a two-year investigation, which claims that he defendants sold more than 95,000 stolen credit card numbers and created more than $4 million (euro2.7 million) in credit card fraud.

Vadim Vassilenko, 40, and Yelena Barysheva, 42, pled guilty in September 2006 for falsifying business records and violating New York's state banking law by running an unlicensed check cashing and money transfer business in New York.

Vassilenko was sentenced to a term of two to six years in prison, and Barysheva, born in Russia, was sentenced to one to three years prison time.

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