In 2003, the FBI had arrested Cumbajohnny, a top administrator of the Shadowcrew carding site. Once law enforcement figured out just who it was they had, they quickly decided to release him to the Secret Service to gather evidence. CJ agreed to help law enforcement set up a VPN, and in February 2004, according to Thomas, began inviting Shadowcrew members to join. The criminals thought they were communicating in private, but in reality the VPN was under surveillance of a Secret Service office in New Jersey. Thomas said about this time CJ also began selling carders on the site $150 AT&T calling cards, which permitted them to make thousands of dollars in free calls. Thomas thinks these cards were used to allow the Secret Service to trace the criminals’ calls. In March 2004, Dmitry Golubov, a Ukrainian who started and headed CardPlanet, a large Russian carding site, disappeared from CarderPlanet, and CJ assumed a role on that board, too.
From newly released information, we now know that sometime in the fall of 2004, Albert Gonzalez AKA Cumbajohnny warned his friend, Toey that he was cooperating with an undercover criminal investigation for the Secret Service. Gonzales wanted to make sure that Toey would not be identified in the Secret Service investigation. At the time, Toey was helping Gonzalez sell card information stolen from merchants such as OfficeMax and BJ’s Wholesale Club, splitting the proceeds with Gonzales.
On October 26, 2004, at 9 pm EST, in a coordinated major bust, more than a dozen Shadowcrew members in several states were arrested at the same time, during a mandatory online discussion. Cumbajohnny was the only major Shadowcrew administrator who was not indicted.
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