Kristina Svechinskaya

Kristina Vladimirovna Svechinskaya (Кристина Владимировна Свечинская, born February 16, 1989) is a former Russian money mule hacker. While studying at New York University, in 2010 she was accused of a plot to defraud British and U.S. banks and usage of false passports. According to charges, Svechinskaya used a Zeus Trojan horse to attack thousands of bank accounts and opened at least five accounts in Bank of America and Wachovia, which received $35,000 (£22,000) of stolen money. It is estimated that with nine other people, Svechinskaya had skimmed $3 million in total. The upcoming Russian film Botnet is partially based on Svechinskaya's story.

Early life
Fluent in English, Svechinskaya originally studied at Stavropol State University. According to Svechinskaya's mother, after the death of Kristina's father their family was living on a 12,000 ruble (US$400 at the time) salary. In her third year, Kristina chose the Work & Travel program and in the summer of 2010 arrived in Massachusetts, where she started to work in a fast food outlet.

Hacker
Her earnings were small and she moved to New York and worked as a hacker's money mule. Svechinskaya was offered an 8–10% share of taken money. Her sentence was expected to be announced in June 2011, but Svechinskaya signed a personal recognizance bond and was released under $25,000 bail. In 2016, Svechinskaya made a YouTube presentation of SmartFlash, marketed as secure cloud-based USB flash drive to store unlimited amount of data.