Feds charge two Pakistani nationals over false document ring used by Russian troll farm

Federal authorities charged two Pakistani nationals over their alleged role in an international document forging ring connected to Russian electoral interference in the 2016 election Thursday.

Mohsin Raza and Mujtaba Raza, of Karachi, Pakistan, each face charges of conspiracy to produce and transfer in false identification documents, three counts of transferring false identification documents, one count of false use of a passport, and one count of aggravated identity theft.

The two are accused of operating two e-tail sites — SecondEye Solution and Forwarderz — that electronically produced and sold false documents, including ones needed to create online bank, payment processing and social media accounts. They remain at large and will be placed on the FBI’s white collar crimes most wanted list.

In 2017, prosecutors said, a member of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian firm the U.S. Intelligence Community in 2017 said was funded by an ally of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, purchased multiple false documents in the names of American individuals from SecondEye.

Those documents were used to register accounts at an American social media firm.

“The indictment alleges a global scheme to produce fraudulent identity documents that other wrongdoers then used to further additional illegal activity, including activity intended to interfere with U.S. elections,” Acting U.S. Attorney Honig said. “Together with the FBI and our other law enforcement partners around the world, we will continue to identify criminal operations such as these and shut them down.”

Other customers used false documents purchased from the sites to gain access to customer accounts on payment processing, e-commerce and virtual currency exchange sites, federal authorities said.

The FBI seized three websites belonging to the firms that were hosted in the United States.