Three men from Florida and Georgia pled guilty to aggravated identity theft and fraud charges stemming from compromised servers.
Alessandro Doreus, 28, North Miami, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of conspiracy to possess 15 or more access devices with the intent to defraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
His co-defendants, Jean Elie Doreus Jovin, 33, Loganville, GA, and Djouman Doreus, 29, North Miami, had pleaded guilty to the same charges last month.
All three defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison for the conspiracy charge, and a minimum mandatory penalty of two years in federal prison for the aggravated identity theft charges.
According to the plea agreements, from at least 2015 through 2020, Jovin, Alessandro Doreus, and Djouman Doreus conspired to knowingly, and with intent to defraud, possess tens of thousands of counterfeit and unauthorized access devices—including the names, Social Security numbers, account numbers, usernames, and passwords of identity theft victims.
The conspirators frequently exchanged these counterfeit and unauthorized access devices—in bulk—among themselves. For example, in November 2018, Jovin emailed Alessandro Doreus a file that contained data for approximately 58,700 credit cards. The conspirators also routinely sent each other messages that contained scores of names, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth of identity theft victims.
The conspirators engaged in a number of fraudulent schemes using the personally identifiable information (PII) that they had amassed. They fraudulently opened and used numerous financial accounts in the names of identity theft victims.
They also used stolen or fraudulently obtained credit card information to pay fake vendor accounts that Jovin opened and controlled. In addition, they used the names and Social Security numbers of identity theft victims to file fraudulent tax returns and obtain tax refunds to which they were not entitled.
Jovin also purchased multiple compromised computer server credentials (including usernames and passwords) on a dark web marketplace and used those compromised server credentials to remotely and fraudulently access computer servers. At times, Jovin shared these compromised server credentials with Alessandro Doreus.
To make it difficult for authorities to trace and attribute fraudulent activity to them, the conspirators created dozens of email accounts—one of which was nofacenocase2017@gmail.com.
The conspirators used these email accounts exclusively or primarily to perpetuate their fraud scheme.
In August 2020, the FBI executed a search warrant at Alessandro Doreus’s home and seized notebooks that contained the PII of more than 300 identity theft victims and credit cards issued in the names of identity theft victims. The FBI also seized $490,365, which are proceeds obtained from this conspiracy.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Emily C. L. Chang.
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