A New York man was sentenced in federal court to 46 months in prison for crimes related to laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Columbus strength training equipment manufacturer.
Alex Bogomolny, 53, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to conspiring to commit and committing money laundering.
According to court documents, in 2021, a malicious banking Trojan had infected a computer of an employee of Rogue Fitness, which is headquartered in Columbus. The FBI knows the specific Trojan to steal banking credentials and usually targets corporate victims. As a result of the Trojan, the company lost nearly half a million dollars.
The stolen money was transferred to 22 different card numbers, including to Bogomolny’s Bank of America card.
Further investigation of Bogomolny’s bank account revealed that between December 2019 and July 2021, he laundered more than $247,000 in additional criminal proceeds through his account.
While executing a search warrant at the defendant’s Brooklyn residence, agents found documents that included more than 341,000 unique identifiers like names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers. The search also discovered images of driver’s licenses, U.S. passports and full lists of full credit card numbers.
Bogomolny also used the online gambling site FanDuel to conspire to launder money. He and others would steal a victim’s identity and use it to create a FanDuel account. Then, criminal proceeds were deposited into the account and later withdrawn.
In total, Bogomolny and others used this scheme to deposit nearly $572,000 and withdraw more than $485,000 of the criminal proceeds.
Finally, Bogomolny’s plea documents detail that, in 2023, the defendant met with undercover FBI agents and agreed to launder $20,000 for a six per cent fee. The funds were represented as proceeds of illegal drug activities.
Between November 2023 and March 2024, Bogomolny sent $18,800 of the original $20,000 back to the undercover FBI agents through multiple ACH transactions.
Bogomolny later agreed to accept another $50,000 from the undercover agents. He met up with the agents in April 2024 and accepted the money, after which he was arrested.
