The FBI’s Star Cooperator May Have Been Running New Scams All Along
When Gery Shalon, mastermind of the infamous JPMorgan hack, flipped, US law enforcement considered it a triumph. But new evidence suggests that while Shalon was working with the FBI, he built a massive new fraud empire in Europe.
On Nov. 10, 2015, Preet Bharara, then the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, stepped behind a podium in the lobby of 1 Saint Andrew’s Plaza in Manhattan and made a stunning announcement. Flanked by agents from the FBI and the US Secret Service, he trumpeted the takedown of “one of the largest cyberhacking schemes ever uncovered.” JPMorgan Chase & Co., a pillar of the global financial system, had been hacked the year before by a gang that also infiltrated other marquee financial companies, including Dow Jones & Co. and ETrade Financial Corp. After months of patient investigation, Bharara said, agents had connected those breaches to a uniquely sophisticated criminal organization, the leaders of which were now in custody.
As Bharara went on to explain that day, the mastermind of the hacks was a 31-year-old Israeli named Gery Shalon. Shalon, who speaks Hebrew, Russian, Georgian and English, had created a global operation that reached across the world of high-level cybercrime. He ran online gambling websites and an illegal cryptocurrency exchange; he laundered money for hackers and sellers of fake pharmaceuticals.