Russian accused of $20M credit card fraud extradited to US

A Russian accused of running a website that helped people commit more than $20 million in credit-card fraud has been extradited to Virginia to face criminal charges. Twenty-nine-year-old Aleksei Burkov made an initial appearance in Alexandria Tuesday after being extradited from Israel. Russian officials objected to his extradition.

The federal indictment says Burkov ran a website called Cardplanet that let people buy stolen credit-card numbers for anywhere from $3 to $60. People used the numbers to make more than $20 million in fraudulent purchases. Prosecutors say Burkov even offered a money-back guarantee if a stolen card number no longer worked. Israeli officials have suggested Russia sought Burkov’s release by offering an exchange for Naama Issachar, a 26-year-old Israeli woman who received a seven-year prison sentence in Moscow on marijuana charges.