Internet Fraud Casebook

Chapter 35. The Big Brother He Never Had

CHRIS A MCCULLOCH

Dmitri Ivanov lived in a dark, cold, windowless basement room in Russia with several family members. Dmitri was only 21 years old, dark haired, with a thin small frame and stood about 5 ⁰9 ⁰⁰. He was not someone people noticed. Nothing made him physically stand out among other young Russian men. But what he had planned and plotted so meticulously for months would make him known on the other side of the globe in a matter of days. While his family was extremely poor and he came from humble beginnings, Dmitri was smart, very smart — especially when it came to computers. And he had big dreams. So, from his cold, dreary room in Russia, he plotted and schemed, knowing he would need hundreds of people from around the world to help him.

Dmitri did not finish high school, and nothing held his attention for long until he started learning about computers. Libraries in Russia gave the local school children access to computers. Dmitri went to a public school as a boy but did not excel. He frankly thought it was a waste of time and did not see a future in an education. He saw people struggle daily around him despite their education, so he did not focus on schooling. However, as a young teen, he quickly caught on to technology. He was curious about how things worked behind the scenes and he tackled the hardware aspect of computers first. He learned to physically piece them together from bits of other computers. He would find old, worn, discarded ...