Bryan Caputo (left) and Daniel Petryszyn (right) in court to hearing charges against them.

July 24, 2014 (Kearny, NJ) The Town of Kearny got some press this week when one of the Defendants in the 1.6 million dollar StubHub ticket, Bryan Caputo, wore a Kearny United Soccer shirt to court. Caputo is a Kearny resident as is Daniel Petryszyn.

Both men in their late 20's are accused of assisting in the sale of 3,500 electronic tickets to events with funds from other account holders to the tune of 1.6 million. According to the New York City District Attorney's office, the two Kearny residents were not innocent bystanders but knew that they were aiding two Russian hackers, Vadim Polyakov, 30 years old, and Nikolay Matveyehuk, 21 years old, in hacking into 1,600 StubHub accounts and purchasing 3,500 e-tickets which were then mailed to Bryan Caputo, Daniel Petryszyn, and to Laurence Brinkmeyer.



StubHub is a subsidary of eBay. It is still not clear how the two Russian hackers obtained the passwords to the StubHub accounts. Executives at eBay deny any breach of security. One theory on how the passwords were obtained is that the Russian hackers used malware on computers and/or installed key-loggers on unsuspecting individual computers.

The New York City District Attorney's office had been investigating the case since March of 2013 but only moved in to arrest the individuals involved when it learned that Russian hacker, Vadim Polyakov, was leaving Russia to travel to Spain via a Facebook post. On July 3, 2014, Spanish authorities in cooperation with United States Secret Service personnel arrested Polyakov outside his hotel near Barcelona, Spain.

It is not clear why Bryan Caputo wore a United Irish T-shirt to an arraignment in New York City. The shirt and the story on how five individuals under 30 years old managed to steal 1.6 million dollars by selling stolen e-tickets has captured the attention of the world. Kearny United has received some publicity but not exactly in a manner it would have preferred.