US prosecutors charge three Europeans for creating & distributing computer virus

US persecutors have charged three Eastern Europeans with various counts for creating and distributing a virus called Gozi that infected over a million computers around the globe.

All the three men, viz. Nikita Kuzmin, Mihai Paunescu and Deniss Calovskis, are in their 20s.

The Gozi virus was used to infect computer, and steal people's personal bankinformation and then steal millions of dollars between 2005 and 2011.

According to the US government investigators, Kuzmin and his co-defenders pocketed at least $50 million (around £32 million) in illegal profits using the Gozi virus.

The US prosecutors said, "The suspects - a Russian, a Latvian and a Romanian - ran a "modern-day bank robbery ring that required neither a gun nor a mask."

Twenty-five-year-old Kuzmin is a Russian national. He had pleaded guilty to the charges in May 2011.

Romania's 28-year-old Mihai Ionut Paunescu and Latvia's 27-year-old Deniss Calovskis have also been arrested, and the extradition proceedings against these two men are under way.

Nikita Kuzmin, Mihai Paunescu and Deniss Calovskis have been slapped with various counts involving bank & wire fraud, access device fraud and computer intrusion, and are facing a maximum jail term of 95 years, 60 years and 67 years, respectively.