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MAKSIK

million Visa transactions or less annually, with the majority of thefts taking place at restaurants.

Max tried to keep the sources of his dumps a secret, falsely claiming in his forum posts that the data came from credit card processing centers to throw investigators off track. But Visa knew that restaurant point-of-sale terminals were being hit hard. In November 2006, the company issued a bulletin to the food service industry warning about hack attacks unfolding through VNC and other remote-access software. Max, though, continued to find a steady stream of vulnerable eateries.

But for Max, it wasn't enough. He hadn't gone into the data-theft business to be second-best. Maksik was costing him money. Even Chris was now buying from both Maksik and Max, going with whichever vendor offered him a good deal on the best dumps.

At Max's direction, Tea befriended the Ukrainian over the course of months and urged him to start vending on Carders Market. Maksik declined graciously and suggested she visit him sometime in Ukraine. Rebuffed, Max took the gloves off and got Tea to send Maksik a Trojan horse program, hoping to get control of the Ukranian's database of dumps. Maksik laughed off the hacking attempt.

If he'd known, Max might have taken comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only one frustrated by Maksik's tight security.

Federal law enforcement had been tracking Maksik since his rise to infamy in the wake of Operation Firewall. An undercover Secret Service agent had been buying dumps from him. Postal Inspector Greg Crabb had worked with law enforcement in Europe to bust carders who'd done business with Maksik, and he shared the resulting information with the Ukrainian national police. In early 2006, the Ukrainians finally identified Maksik as one Maksym Yastremski, from Kharkov. But they didn't have enough evidence to make an arrest.

The United States refocused on identifying Maksik's hacking source. E-gold once again provided the entry point. The Secret Service analyzed