Overview

• Gholinejad pleaded guilty to one count of computer fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the Robbinhood scheme.
• Beginning in January 2019, he and co-conspirators encrypted files on networks of U.S. cities, healthcare entities and businesses to demand Bitcoin ransoms.
• Baltimore bore the brunt with over $19 million in combined revenue losses and recovery costs and months of disrupted services like property tax and water billing.
• Other municipalities targeted included Greenville, North Carolina; Gresham, Oregon; and Yonkers, New York, in similarly orchestrated extortion attempts.
• The FBI’s Charlotte and Baltimore field offices led the investigation with assistance from Bulgarian law enforcement, uncovering use of VPNs, cryptocurrency mixing and chain-hopping to launder payments.