Romanians accused of eBay scam

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) A group of Eastern European men have been charged with running a multimillion-dollar scam through sites including eBay and Cars.com, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Charges were unsealed against Romanian national Nicolae Popescu, currently a fugitive, along with five of his compatriots and one Albanian who also remain at large. U.S. law enforcement officials have issued alerts for the men through Interpol, the international police agency.

Popescu, 33, is accused of leading a crime ring that placed fake listings on e-commerce websites including eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500), Cars.com, AutoTrader.com, and CycleTrader.com. The listings were for high-value items, including cars, motorcycles and boats.

The men also allegedly sold nonexistent vehicles through websites they created for phony dealerships.

Prosecutors estimate that the group earned more than $3 million from the alleged scheme between 2011 and 2012. Popescu predicted that "criminals will not be extradited from Romania to U.S.A. . . . [I]t will never happen," according to a 2011 recording cited in the charging documents.

"Using forged documents and phony websites, for years Popescu and his criminal syndicate reached across the ocean to pick the pockets of hard working Americans looking to purchase cars," Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. "They thought their distance would insulate them from law enforcement scrutiny."

Six co-defendants in the case were arrested last December in a coordinated international effort. Three were extradited from Romania to the U.S. earlier this year; one was extradited from the U.K.; one's extradition has been ordered in the Czech Republic; and one is engaged in extradition proceedings in Canada.

Contact information for defense attorneys in the case was unavailable. Cars.com, AutoTrader.com, CycleTrader.com and eBay did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Eastern Europe has long been a center for sophisticated cybercrime. Earlier this year, an Eastern European gang reportedly hacked a number of tech companies -- including Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) and Twitter -- in an apparent effort to steal corporate secrets.