ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — A Russian web developer recently appeared in federal court in Atlanta, where he pleaded not guilty to multiple charges stemming from an international conspiracy to take over bank accounts, prosecutors announced Tuesday.Sergei Anatolyevich Filimonov, a 36-year-old Russian national, was indicted last November by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, access device fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, and multiple counts of bank, wire and access devic...
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — A Russian web developer recently appeared in federal court in Atlanta, where he pleaded not guilty to multiple charges stemming from an international conspiracy to take over bank accounts, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Sergei Anatolyevich Filimonov, a 36-year-old Russian national, was indicted last November by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, access device fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, and multiple counts of bank, wire and access device fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
Filimonov was extradited from the Republic of Georgia, and on Friday, he appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Atlanta and pleaded not guilty.
From November 2023 through October 2025, Filimonov and his co?conspirators carried out a scheme involving spoofed domains that mimicked the websites of federally insured financial institutions, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Filimonov and his co-conspirators allegedly tried to obtain millions of dollars from victim accounts, including accounts held by companies located in the Northern District of Georgia.
Prosecutors said the conspirators purchased sponsored search?engine links to divert unsuspecting banking customers to fraudulent login pages, where the victims entered their credentials. The conspirators then used the stolen credentials to access bank accounts, review account balances and initiate unauthorized wire transfers to steal bank account funds.
According to Marlo Graham, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta, Filimonov and his conspirators stole millions of dollars in the scheme.
Filimonov allegedly developed and maintained online infrastructure supporting the operation, including interactive databases storing more than 5,000 stolen login credentials and software designed to capture and transmit sensitive authentication data.
The Department of Justice previously seized a domain that operated as a backend server for the scheme, storing stolen credentials harvested from fraudulent banking websites. The server contained thousands of compromised credentials, including those belonging to victims in the Northern District of Georgia.
Filimonov is being held in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending further proceedings. If convicted on all charges, he faces a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of 175 years, prosecutors said.
“This investigation and indictment underscore our commitment to disrupting large-scale cyber theft,” U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg said in a statement. “With assistance from our international partners, we will relentlessly pursue those who weaponize technology for personal gain and hold them fully accountable in an American courtroom.”