Simon Kaura, Access Device Fraud, Missouri 2024

A global darknet conspiracy has been brought to justice in Missouri, with a citizen of Nigeria sentenced to five years in federal prison without parole. Simon Kaura, 41, was extradited from the United Kingdom and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud and one count of access device fraud on May 22, 2024.

Kaura’s crimes resulted in an intended loss of $6,338,500, according to the court. He operated under multiple online monikers, including ‘apples,’ ‘applepiecards,’ ‘cartman,’ and ‘dpharoah,’ and was part of a sophisticated conspiracy to obtain and sell stolen financial information on darknet markets.

These markets allowed users to buy and sell stolen and fraudulent financial information, and operated much like conventional e-commerce websites, except that the goods sold on the markets were primarily criminal in nature. Kaura and his co-conspirators possessed card information belonging to victims from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Co-defendant Taylor Ross Staats, 41, of Texas was sentenced on January 25, 2024, to 18 months in federal prison without parole after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Staats’s main role in the conspiracy was to determine, prior to being advertised for sale, whether the stolen payment cards were still active and capable of use.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department continue to seek forfeiture of more than $4.5 million in criminal proceeds resulting from the co-conspirators’ crimes. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with the Government of the United Kingdom to secure the arrest and extradition of Kaura.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas Heberle, Matthew Blackwood, and John Constance of the Western District of Missouri and Trial Attorneys Michael Christin and Louisa Becker from the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. It was investigated by the FBI.

Kaura and his co-conspirators operated as prominent ‘carding’ (stolen financial information) vendors, sometimes under the moniker brand ‘ggmccloud’ and ‘ggmccloud1,’ on multiple darknet markets. Each market required users to transact in digital currencies, such as Bitcoin.

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