Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_14-cr-00083/USCOURTS-caed-2_14-cr-00083-60/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Rouslan Akhmerov
Defendant
Ruslan Kirilyuk
Defendant
Aleksandr Maslov
Defendant
Mihran Melkonyan
Defendant
USA
Plaintiff

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff,

v.

RUSLAN KIRILYUK,

Defendant.

No. 2:14-cr-83-GEB

ORDER OVERRULING DEFENDANT’S 

OBJECTIONS TO THE PRESENTENCE 

REPORT

Defendant Ruslan Kirilyuk objects to findings in the 

Presentence Report (“PSR”). The United States opposes the 

objections.

Kirilyuk objects to paragraph 7 in the PSR arguing “[t]here 

is no evidence that [he] opened a fake American Express merchant 

account in the name of [L.D.] using the high school transcript 

that was introduced at trial.” Def’s Obj. at 5:7-9. The United 

States rejoins: 

To the extent Kirilyuk argues the evidence did not 

show he personally took all of the steps to steal and 

Case 2:14-cr-00083-DJC Document 391 Filed 12/09/19 Page 1 of 15
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misuse L.D.’s identity, the government agrees. 

However, Kirilyuk was convicted beyond a reasonable 

doubt by the jury for his participation in this 

unlawful use of L.D.’s personally identifying 

information. This finding was well supported by, among 

other pieces of evidence, the recovery of Kirilyuk’s 

fingerprint from L.D.’s student transcript that was 

used to open the merchant account. Moreover, to the 

extent that others also assisted in the crime, Kirilyuk 

is responsible for the reasonably foreseeable acts 

taken by his coconspirators in furtherance of the 

criminal agreement. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 2; Ninth 

Cir. Crim. Jury Inst. 5.1; U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3. 

Therefore, while Kirilyuk was not the only person who 

was involved in the scheme, the PSR correctly states 

that he used the name and social security number of 

L.D. to open the account. If any change is to be made 

to the language in the PSR, the government suggests 

that it be revised to state that Kirilyuk and his codefendants used the name and social security number of 

L.D.”

Gov’t’s Sen. Memo and Response to Objs. at 3:17-28, ECF 385.

The United States is correct. This objection is overruled.

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Kirilyuk objects to paragraph 17 in the PSR arguing he never 

made the statement attributed to him in the paragraph. The 

government’s following response to this objection accurately 

states the evidentiary record concerning the objection: Kirilyuk 

“objects to a statement made in a chat by his coconspirators. 

This chat was a contemporaneous statement made in the course of 

the conspiracy by Kirilyuk’s coconspirators. It was . . . 

admitted at trial and it belongs in the PSR because it describes 

Kirilyuk’s interactions with his coconspirators. [The statement] 

is very probative of Kirilyuk’s position as the leader of the 

fraud scheme whose leadership style was not always appreciated by 

his coconspirators.” Sentencing Memor. and Resp. to Objs. at 

4:28, 5:1-2 and 4-5, ECF 385. Therefore, the objection to 

paragraph 17 is overruled.

Kirilyuk objects to the $59,956,500 intended loss amount in 

paragraph 29 of the PSR. However, clear and convincing evidence 

in the trial and sentencing records supports this paragraph. The 

evidentiary record includes the following findings:

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 

investigation revealed a criminal network which 

operated 71 false online businesses to commit credit 

card fraud from 2011 to 2014. The investigation 

identified Mihran Melkonyan, Rouslan Akhmerov, 

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Aleksandr Maslov, and Ruslan Kirilyuk as conspirators. 

Melkonyan, Akhmerov, Maslov, and Kirilyuk operated the 

fraudulent online businesses by submitting fraudulent 

charges to stolen American Express credit card and 

debit card accounts. The FBI found that approximately 

119,913 stolen American Express credit cards or debit 

cards were used, which resulted in 190,321 transactions 

being submitted to American Express. Each transaction 

usually was within the price range of $15 to $30. 

American Express approved approximately 84,032 of these 

charges, which resulted in $1,418,959 in fraudulent 

charges being approved, but the intended loss was more 

than $3.4 million.

Paragraph 5 in the PSR at 5. 

Further, the method used to calculate the intended loss 

stated in paragraph 29 of the PSR is supported by the advisory 

guidelines; specifically, “[e]ach device is valued at $500.” PSR 

at paragraph 29; See United States v. Dobadzhyan, 677 Fed.Appx. 

454, 455(9th Cir. 2017) (“In cases, such as this one, involving 

altered or counterfeit instruments, U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1) sets 

increases in criminal offense levels based on the amount of loss

[; and a] court may impose a charge of $500 per counterfeit 

access device number. U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, cmt. n.3(F)(i); United 

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States v. Popovski, 872 F.3d 552, 553, (7th Cir. 2017) cert. 

denied 138 S.Ct. 1017 (2018)(“Application Note 3(F)(i) to § 2B1.1 

provides: ‘In a case involving any counterfeit access device or 

unauthorized access device, loss includes any unauthorized 

charges made with the counterfeit access device or unauthorized 

access device and shall be not less than $500 per access 

device.’”).

The United States is correct in the following assertions in 

its brief: “[The intended] loss amount was shown through a 

variety of links, including transaction signatures, items 

recovered in search warrants, linked bank accounts, common IP 

addresses, witness testimony, and other evidence. Corroborated 

testimony further established that Kirilyuk was a knowing 

participant in [the] full scheme.” United States’ Sentencing 

Memor. and Resp. to Objs. at 5:12-15. 

Kirilyuk’s objection to paragraph 29 is overruled.

Kirilyuk also objects to paragraph 30 in the PSR arguing it 

erroneously contains an increase in his sentencing offense level 

“for [the] number of victims [, and that the] ‘victim impact’, 

paragraph makes it clear that only AMEX suffered any actual loss. 

AMEX made all cardholders whole. For the purposes of this 

adjustment, ‘victim’ is a term of art which means a person who

has suffered any part of ‘actual loss.’” Def.’s Obj. at 14:12-14, 

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ECF 388. The Ninth Circuit states in United States v. Pham, 545 

F.3d 712, 719 (9th Cir. 2008) (internal quotations omitted): 

“there may be situations in which a person could be considered a 

victim under the Guidelines even though he or she is ultimately 

reimbursed.” This case presents such a situation. Paragraph 11 

in the PSR contains the following information on some of the 

victims found during an executed search warrant at Akhmerov’s 

residence in Studio City, California: 

FBI agents seized photocopies of approximately 222 

[stolen high school] student transcripts from the 

Sacramento area which contained handwritten notes. The 

handwritten notes included credit scores, bank account 

numbers, e-mail addresses, American Express merchant 

account information, and logins and passwords required 

to access various online accounts. Some of these 

students’ identities were utilized to open the 

fraudulent online businesses. Agents also discovered 

two separate bank accounts which were established in 

two of the Russian students’ names. FBI agents also 

seized several bank debit cards, checkbooks, $196,000 

in cash, and more than 50 MoneyPak reloadable cards . . 

. A forensic analysis of the student transcripts 

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revealed 180 latent fingerprints belonged to Akhmerov, 

and one matched Kirilyuk.

The United States is correct in its following response 

to this objection and this response is adopted as additional 

sentencing findings: 

Kirilyuk argues implausibly that there were not 

ten or more victims of his . . . credit card and 

identity theft fraud scheme. Based simply on the trial 

evidence, this claim is false. A person suffering a 

temporary loss can be counted as a victim . . . As set 

forth at trial, the entire scheme was structured to 

make it less likely that the scheme would be uncovered 

and the refund instantaneous. Charges were 

intentionally kept small to avoid being noticed. 

Company names were selected that made it less likely 

that they would stand out on a credit card statement. 

The purpose of structuring the scheme in this manner 

was to get victims to ignore the charges and pay their 

credit card bills. This was essential to the scheme—if 

enough victims complained about fraudulent charges too 

quickly, the credit card company would spot the fraud, 

shut down the merchant account, and claw back whatever 

stolen money was still in the merchant account. Given 

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this scheme structure, [and] the approximately 190,000 

charges to approximately 119,913 unique American 

Express credit card numbers, netting well over $1.4 

million . . . at least 10 card holders (approximately 

0.0083% of the total number) [paid] their credit card 

bills without noticing and contesting the charges. The 

government trial exhibits and testimony . . . show [] 

that the victims paid money before the charges were 

eventually discovered and reversed. Trial testimony 

established that the credit card company would shut 

down a company if there were too many indicators of 

fraud, including charges that needed to be refunded. 

In some cases, this meant that companies were closed 

within a very short time of being opened; however, in 

some cases the defendants companies were more 

successful at avoiding a large number of early charge 

backs and had a longer life. Government trial exhibit 

2 was a timeline that shows the life cycle of many of 

the various shell companies from the first fraudulent 

charge to the last. At least fourteen of those 

companies spanned a period of three months or more 

between the first and last charge. Many other 

fraudulent companies lasted more than two months. That 

means that many of the victims in the first months of 

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operation could not have spotted the charges and asked 

to have them be reversed—if they had, the companies 

would not have made it to the subsequent months because 

American Express would have closed their merchant 

accounts. Similar information was contained on 

government trial exhibit 1. Trial exhibit 1 listed the 

specific billing date ranges for the fraudulent 

companies as well as the total amount billed and the 

number of fraudulent charges. From this exhibit it is 

clear that the companies that operated for more than 

three months were collectively responsible for 

thousands of fraudulent charges to thousands of unique 

cards.

Even where charges were identified by victims and 

timely reversed, it was not without effort on the part 

of many of the victims. At trial, numerous cell phones 

were introduced into evidence that had company 

information written on the back of them. Many of these 

phones were used to field calls from people complaining 

about fraudulent charges in order to get them reversed. 

This process was not automatic and was, therefore, an 

additional burden on victims of the scheme.

Kirilyuk also overlooks the dozens of student 

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victims whose identities and credit were used in order 

to open fraudulent businesses. Their names are in the 

record in Exhibit 1, testimony of some of those victims 

at trial, and through the student transcripts admitted 

at trial. When the fraudulent businesses were shut 

down, that inevitably had an impact on the credit of 

those students. As they reach a point where they need 

to access credit to buy cars or homes, or even to get 

credit cards, those students will either suffer 

financially or will have to go through the time

consuming process of getting their credit report 

corrected.

[L]isted below are more than ten specific victims 

that support the enhancement. These victims include 

the credit card company, several banks who took losses 

when the shell accounts created and used to carry out 

the fraud were shut down or abandoned, and a small 

sampling of the credit card holders:

1. American Express—Losses related to repaying 

the victim cardholders . . . 

2. Citibank—On February 19, 2013, the shell bank 

account in the name of Evgenia Romanova, account -9732, 

caused a $289.35 loss in the form of a misc bank 

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credit. Ex 1.

3. Wells Fargo Bank—On July 29, 2013, the shell 

bank account in the name of Daria Puchkova, account -

5344, caused a $677.00 loss in the form of a fees 

charge off and a $7.99 closeout chargeoff credit. Ex. 

2.

4. Chase Bank—On June 5, 2013, the shell bank 

account in the name of Evgenia Romanova, account -5730, 

caused an $816.48 loss in the form of an overdraft 

write off credit. Ex. 3.

5. Bank of America—On February 27, 2013, the 

shell bank account in the name of Evgenia Romanova, 

account -1726, caused a $470.34 loss in the form of a 

force closed account credit. Ex. 4.

6. U.S. Bank—On November 23, 2012, the shell bank 

account in the name of Angelina Kikot, account -0886, 

caused a $48.77 loss in the form of a charge off 

overdrawn account credit. Ex. 5.

7. J.G.—Victim cardholder who did not notice a 

fraudulent charge from Jack BC. Ex. 6.

8. V.B.—Victim cardholder who did not notice a 

fraudulent charge from RP Art. Ex. 7.

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9. D.M.—Victim cardholder who did not notice a 

fraudulent charge from Depper. Ex. 8.

10. L.A.—Victim cardholder who did not notice a 

fraudulent charge from RD Wireless. Ex. 9.

11. C.B.—Victim cardholder who did not notice a 

fraudulent charge from RD Wireless. Exs. 10, 11.

Sentencing Memor. and Resp. to Objs. at 7:7-9, 14-28, 8:1-26, 

9:1-22. 

Individuals and entities can be “be considered ‘victims’ for 

purposes of § 2B1.1 despite ultimately recovering most or all of 

their initial losses.” Pham, 545 F.3d at 719. For the stated 

reasons Kirilyuk’s objections to paragraph 30 in the PSR are 

overruled.

Kirilyuk also objects to paragraph 32 in the PSR arguing his 

offense level should not have been increased for the use of 

authentication features. The enhancement is justified for the 

reasons stated in the PSR and under U.S.S.G.

§2B1.1(b)(11)(A)(ii). Therefore, the objection is overruled.

Kirilyuk also objects to the leadership offense level 

enhancement in paragraph 34 of the PSR. The evidentiary record 

evinces Kirilyuk was a leader of the criminal scheme, and as such 

he is responsible for his own acts and for the reasonably 

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foreseeable acts taken by his co-schemers in furtherance of the 

criminal scheme. The following adopted findings in the PSR are 

part of the findings supporting the leadership enhancement: 

“On May 7, 2014, Akhmerov told an FBI agent that 

he began working with Kirilyuk in 2012. Kirilyuk told 

Akhmerov that he worked with computer hackers in Russia 

who had access to stolen credit card data. Kirilyuk’s 

job was to open businesses and online retail businesses 

that supposedly sold electronic books and video games. 

Kirilyuk used other individuals’ identities to open the

bank accounts, credit card accounts, and merchant

accounts for these businesses. Kirilyuk told Akhmerov 

he had been involved with this type of employment for 

approximately 10 years and worked with individuals in 

Sacramento and Los Angeles, California. Once a 

business had been created, Kirilyuk’s Russian partners 

used the businesses to process fraudulent charges on 

stolen credit card accounts. Akhmerov advised the FBI 

agent that he drove Kirilyuk to meetings, checked 

websites, sent faxes, purchased prepaid cell phones, 

withdrew money from ATMs, and picked up items from 

mailboxes. Akhmerov also lived with Kirilyuk from 2012 

to 2013. Kirilyuk provided digital storage media, 

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driver licenses, personal identifying information,

student transcripts, and bank records related to the 

businesses they established. Kirilyuk introduced 

Akhmerov to his business associates, Andrey Bgatov and 

Melkonyan. 

Paragraph 8 in the PSR. 

Further, as the United States asserts in its brief: “The 

trial evidence corroborate[s] Akhmerov’s testimony [that Kirilyuk 

was the leader of this scheme]. For example, contemporaneous 

chats introduced by the government at trial showed that other 

members of the scheme referred to (and complained about) 

Kirilyuk’s position as the leader of the scheme and the way he 

bossed around other members of the scheme. Kirilyuk’s attacks on 

Akhmerov’s credibility simply fail under the weight of the trial 

evidence.” Sentencing Memor. and Resp. to Objs. at 4:7-12. 

The objections to paragraph 34 in the PSR are overruled.

Kirilyuk also objects to paragraph 39 in the PSR arguing he 

“should receive a decrease [in his offense level] for acceptance 

of responsibility.” Def’s Obj. at 17:3. Kirilyuk did not take

full responsibility for all of his criminal actions and therefore 

is not entitled to this reduction in his offense level. The 

objection is overruled.

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A copy of this order shall be appended “to any copy of the 

presentence report made available to the Bureau of Prisons.” Fed. 

Rule of Crim. Proc. 32(i)(3)(c).

Dated: December 6, 2019

 

 

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