Daniel Abayev, Hacking, New York 2021

Two men were arrested in Queens, New York, on September 2021 for conspiring with Russian nationals to hack the taxi dispatch system at JFK Airport. Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and John Gay, the Inspector General of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman with two counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions.

The indictment alleges that Abayev and Leyman hacked the electronic taxi dispatch system, which ensures that taxis are dispatched in the order in which they arrived, and moved certain taxis to the front of the line in exchange for payment. The scheme, which was in place from September 2019 to September 2021, allowed drivers to skip the taxi line by paying $10 to the hackers. Abayev and Leyman charged taxi drivers $10 each time they were advanced to the front of the line.

The Port Authority has zero tolerance for bad actors violating the law at their facilities, according to Inspector General John Gay. The agency has partnered with the Southern District to detect and disrupt illegal behavior at their facilities.

As alleged in the indictment, Abayev and Leyman explored various mechanisms to access the dispatch system, including bribing someone to insert a flash drive containing malware into computers connected to the system, obtaining unauthorized access to the system via a Wi-Fi connection, and stealing computer tablets connected to the system. The members of the hacking scheme also sent messages to each other in which they explicitly discussed their intention to hack the dispatch system.

Abayev and Leyman were arrested this morning in Queens, New York, and will be presented before United States Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein this afternoon. The defendants are facing serious criminal charges for their alleged cybercrimes.

The indictment charges Abayev and Leyman with two counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions. The maximum penalty for each count is five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

The case is being prosecuted by the Southern District of New York. The investigation was conducted by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Office of the Inspector General.

Related Federal Cases