Romeo Stepanenko, 3W3RR
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B Rufzeichen / Call Signs
Provisorische Liste / Work in progress
Short list of Romeo's Call Signs
1S0RR, 1S0XV, 1S1RR, 3W3RR/UF6F (earthquake rescue operation), 3W3RR/mm (South China Sea), 3W5JA, 3W7A, 3W8AA, 3W100HCM, 4J1FM, 4J1FW, 4J0Q, 4L/AH0M, 4U1ITU, 4U1VIC, 5A0RR, 9D0RR, 9H3UP, 9H50VE, 9Y4/AH0M, AH0M, AH0M/am (Bermuda Triangle perambulation), AH0M/VE2, AH0M/VE3, AH0M/W4 (Dry Tortugas Isl.), BY1PK, DL/AH0M, EK0JA, EK0RR/am (hot air balloon), EK0RR/mm (Russian Navy submarine), EW8TJ, FJ/AH0M, FS/AH0M, HB0/3W3RR, HB9/AH0M, IT9/AH0M (Etna volcano), J37/AH0M, J6/AH0M, JA3ZTN, JI1ZTA, KP2/AH0M, KP4/AH0M, LZ1KDP, LZ9A, LZ/AH0M, OE/AH0M, OK8ERR, OM9CRR, P5RS7, PJ2/AH0M, PJ7/AH0M, R3A (Russian Parliament, 20-21 August 1991), RB4JWS/UF1O (South Ossetia), RB4JWS/UF1Q (Adzharia), RB4JWS/UF1V (Abkhazia), RO/3W3RR (Pridnestrovie), S79R, TA1/3W3RR, TA2/3W3RR, UB5JRR, UB5JRR/UA6E (Mount Elbrus), UB5JRR/UA6X, UQ1GWW, V2A/AH0M, VP2E/AH0M, VP2M/AH0M, VP2M/AH0M/am (helicopter), VP5/AH0M, XE2/AH0M, XV2A, XV0SU, XV100HCM, XY0RR, YA0RR, YL1WW, YL75ID (Island of Death), as well as the guest operations courtesy to the friends' & clubs' hospitality worldwide: 5B4, 8Q7, 9H1, 9H4, A41, A61, AP2, DL, EA, EI, EP, ES, G, I, HA, HB9, HB0, JA, OE, OK, PA, SP, UA1-0, UC2, UD6, UH8, UI8, UL7, UO5, TA, VE2-3, VO2, VU2, W1-8, YK, YL, YO
Detailed list of Romeo's Call Signs ► Mehr/read on
C The early years
Romeo Stepanenko was born 1964 in the Ukraine, son of Vladimir Stepanenko UB1RR who most probably introduced him to amateur radio. Nothing is known, to date, of Romeo's childhood and youth, or of his military service. Nor do we know where and when he obtained his license.
His own accounts start in early 1989:
1989: 3W3RR, Vietnam
Romeo, meanwhile, had enrolled with a joint Soviet-Vietnamese company, Kiulong, and on that firm's payroll went to Vietnam, in late 1989.
The Minister of telecommunications of that country wanted to create an Amateur Radio Society; so, after a little thinking, I accepted a job to conduct courses for new hams, create a club station, produce rules and regulations for the Vietnamese. During the day I taught my hams-to-be; at night I got on the air and operated" 3W3RR.
April/May 1990: 1S0XV/1S1RR, Spratly
Expedition-Video: hier - YouTube video here: : 
ext. Link -- Quoting from Romeo's report: "By February <1990> I had established some good connections with the local officials in Saigon and started gathering information ... to look into the possibility of a Spratly operation. ... Finally it was becoming clear that this matter could be resolved only in Hanoi, at the highest level.
January and December, 1991: YA0RR, Afghanistan
The idea of reactivating amateur radio in the middle of political chaos was certainly both a questionable and daring undertaking, but one man held on to this crazy idea: Romeo Stepanenko 3W3RR, who allegedly used his excellent personal contacts to further this adventure. Due to his secretive activities a widespread rumor stubbornly existed that Romeo may have been a high-ranking official of the Soviet secret service KGB. Romeo did not want to disclose how he obtained his license...
Romeo's photo album (Courtesy ofSilversun)
1 - Flight Moscow-Tashkent / 2 - Fluight Tashkent - Kabul / 3, 4 - Kabul Airport / 5, 6 - Kabul street scenes / 7 - ??? / 8 - The Shack / 9 - On the road in Mazar-al-Sharif / 10 - Mazar-al-Sharif
1991: Moscow interlude for a new-born hero - and a trip around the world
The incredible career of Romeo Stepanenko - and a world-tour
YouTube video: 
ext. Link -- Russia's "White House" in Moscow is the seat of the Russian government. The building figured prominently on the morning of 19 August, 1991: Soviet officials launched a coup. Boris Yeltsin left for the Russian White House shortly after the coup was announced, encountering tanks and armored personnel carriers along the way. At 1 p.m. he climbed atop a tank positioned just outside the building, denounced the coup as unconstitutional, and called for Gorbachev's release from house arrest. Radio amateurs took a vital role during these dramatic hours.
September 1991: XY0RR, Myanmar - and 1S0VX/1S1RR, Spratly, again
Only a few days after his spectacular appearance in Moscow, Romeo landed his next coup, something just unthinkable (or so people thought at that time): From 30 August, 1991 he activated, the former Burma. It was the first (initially) recognized amateur rdsio operation after almost thirty years. No wonder that Myanmar ranked amongst the most wanted DXCC Entities worldwide. For two weeks four Soviet hams activated XYØRR.
August 1992: 9D0RR, Iran / December 1992: P5RS7, North Korea
Romeo Stepanenko, the unsurpassed big gun of amateur radio...
It was Romeo's greatest time. He was celebrated as a hero, invited to every major hamvention, honoured guest and everybody's darling. He obtained a US license and, in fact, collected call sign after call sign in incredibly short time - adding up to about fifty. Romeo was the highlight at the Dayton hamvention, in 1992, where we signed QSL cards and met his buddies. And the miracles continued: Romeo even topped his fame by activating another two "impossible" DXCC Entities.
August 1993: 5A0RR, Libya
The Last Coup
Romeo states, "Originally, plans called for the use of six amateur radio operators for 5A, but due to the lack of funding we had to limit ourselves to three operators: Said (Libyan), who currently holds the call sign 5A0RR, Danny, LZ2UU and myself. During the operation, which lasted five days, we worked over 11,000 stations...
February 1996: Romeo's decline and fall
The game is over
DX Bulletin 11 ARLD011 - From ARRL Headquarters Newington CT - February 21, 1996 -To all radio amateurs SB DX ARL ARLD011 ARLD011
Awards committee vote
The ARRL Awards Committee met recently to review submitted documentation for the 1992-93 P5RS7 operation submitted by Romeo Stepanenko. After a review of all material available, the Awards Committee voted unanimously to disqualify Romeo Stepanenko from participation in the DXCC program. This disqualification is based upon Rule 12, Operations Ethics, and Rule 13. The disqualification means that Stepanenko is not eligible to participate in the DXCC program in any manner. This includes, as provided for under Rule 12, paragraph (b) disallowance of contacts made with any station or DXpedition operated by him from the time of this action.
Ending behind bars
Romeo used various aliases due to his different jobs which dealt with different governments: names Romero Vega and Roman Vega were on his Guatemalan and Costa-Rican passports (with latest he was arrested in Cyprus). Based on information revealed by U.S. Secret Service, Romeo, aside of his Ukrainian and Russian passports issued on the name "Stepanenko", had been holding a few more passports: Estonian, Belgium, Greek, and United Kingdom, issued with the other different names. - He was arrested and extradited from Cyprus to the United States in March of 2004, and has been charged with 40 counts of wire fraud and trafficking in stolen credit card numbers. He is alleged to have done this in online chat rooms. He allegedly bilked over $3 million out of this scheme. Romeo has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He has been held in northern California, as he is considered a flight risk.
Romeo's trial was scheduled to begin in San Francisco on Monday, November 28, 2005.
An update from Ed Kritsky...
(Photo: Romeo) We have tried time and again to find out about Romeo's whereabaouts after his detention. US authorities denied information, and Romeo's father, too, did not want to comment on his son's fate. But now Bernie McClenny, W3UR, the publisher of the Daily DX Bulletin, reveived an email from Ed Kritsky, NT2X, Romeo's buddy during the days of early fame, reprint and duplication permitted. Here is Ed's account:
...and an update from Romeo himself
Legal note: The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher of this web site.
The Interpol order was based on the arrest warrant issued by the Northern California Federal District Court. My California case (still unresolved & dormant) contains 40 charges that "weigh" 600 years in prison. I have seen the inside of several Californian jails while preparing for the jury trial. A plea bargain was reached between my lawyers, the Judge Breyer and the prosecutor in 2007. If I was to give up a jury trial and sign paperwork pleading guilty by association, without admitting that I am Boa (as they baselessly stated in the indictment and everywhere else), I would be set free, with time already served in detention.
Nobody – neither judges, government agents nor prosecutors like jury trial. This is extra work for them, leading to temporary breakdowns of their conveyor belt. This prosecutorial, industrial-scale conveyor belt is based upon an arrest, followed by any means possible to get the accused to plead guilty, after which he is sentenced and proceeds on to prison to serve out his time. As a result, the conveyor belt is freed to work on new quarry. Michelle Alexander in her The New York Times article "Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System" quotes Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute: "The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used." It was formally agreed between the parties that the United States nor any of its prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies would have any further claims against me. They would not prevent me from leaving this country. They would not bring new charges against me.
I have known for a long time that you cannot trust any state, and especially the United States. But I had some small hope. Ah, hope – the sanctuary of fools. The Russian writer Varlam Shalamov wrote well about this: "Hope is like shackles on the prisoner. Hope is never freedom. A man hoping for something changes his behavior, and prostitutes his soul more often than one who has no hope... One can only hope for a chance, one lucky chance Patience and a break – this is what saved us and will save us in the future. Two whales on which rests the entire prison world." I was hoping they would let me go only so that they could track down where I'm going – as nothing was found by my accussers throughout their multi-year worldwide investigation efforts.
The bargain struck between the prosecution, the Judge and my lawyers gave me an airline ticket to fly from San Francisco to Miami, then to Grenada (Caribbean), into Quito (Ecuador) via Caracas (Venezuela). An agreement was reached that on August 28, 2007 I would be released from the San Francisco federal courtroom and the US Marshals would escort me to the airplane to make sure I left the country. Farewell, America?
Not so fast, though. The ending was more convoluted, nevertheless in the true "justice" spirit of this country. For transportation to court, prisoners are routinely waist-chained, handcuffed and shackled by the US Marshals. That day, on the way to court, being handcuffed, shackled and waist-chained, I was dropped on the concrete floor of Santa Rita county jail, head first. This was done in full view of other prisoners who thought I was done. The impact on my head hitting the concrete floor was so strong that blood rushed from my nose, ears, eyes, and mouth, and I lost my consciousness. Was this to soften me up or to cloud my thinking? Or was it done on instructions from someone – or better yet – for the excess love of democracy? When I came to my senses on the floor in the puddle of blood, remembering my boxing training, I got up on one knee, spitting out blood and pieces of broken teeth. They took off my handcuffs for a few minutes and dragged me to the water faucet. Then onward we went – to the forthcoming star-spangled manifestations of democracy, liberty and justice.
I must mention that since that day, for five years, I’ve been trying to get medical examination and an MRI. My requests and petitions (related to this and other matters) are routinely being ignored at all levels – from jail medics to federal judges.
In front of the Judge at the San Francisco federal courtroom on that August day in 2007, I was still jaggering from my joy ride. The Judge was ready to bid me farewell, and I was ready to take a trip to my beloved Ecuador. It was then that a couple of "men in black" from Washington DC stood up. They advised Judge Breyer that they don't care about any arrangements made prior; and that as of last night, I had a new indictment – based on the same unproven facts, but on the different statutes, in the Eastern Federal District of New York. This is where I was taken by ConAir few months later.
It’s the end of 2012 – and I have not been convicted on any charges by any United States court. I will soon be spending my tenth year in various jails and prisons here without being convicted. I deem myself a POW - prisoner of war, within the war which the United States' version of "justice" is in a battle against common justice, as it is understood by the rest of the world. Nothing that is happening to me is even remotely related to justice. It does not matter how my case is being manipulated and how judicially sophisticated the United States make it appear. Well, I love being cornered. Both the view as well as the mind are clearer when you are standing in a corner.
From November 2007, after a good dozen other jails and prisons, I am now in New York’s MDC Brooklyn, a transfer/pretrial jail that holds people while they are being investigated or those who are transferred through New York from one jail/prison to another. Currently I am awaiting a sentence on NY charges. My presentencing report (PSR), provided to the Judge by the probation office, humanely recommends the 52nd level of the sentencing guidelines. This is more than life. Life sentence is on the 43rd level.
The prosecutors and "men in black" want the same. The more years the accused receives – the better for their careers and resumes. In their opinion I should get no less than 27.5 years. This is an exact amount of time promised to me unless I agreed to play their games and testify, under oath, against several well-known politicians from some of the former Soviet Union republics. Otherwise, I would have been freed many years ago, the same as a bunch of other personalities from CarderPlanet, ShadowCrew and its subsequently reincarnated groups & organizations. I met several of them in jails, and none of them received a sentence of more than 4 years.
My sentencing date has not been set. What sentence I shall receive and how things will progress remains to be seen. In the meantime, my lawyers are working on a sentencing memorandum. Regardless of what I should receive, I will be transported back to San Francisco, where my prior case remains open. Such are the quirks of American 'justice'."
(Source: www3w3rr.com - with permission)
Romeo's "Jail QSLs"
Obviously, Romeo doesn't have access to radio equipment while he is in jail. However, to receive his jail-QSL, it's unnecessary to make on-air QSO with him. The numbered jail-card will be sent to anyone whose card Romeo receives by mail at his current jail's address: "If your QSL-card makes it through the jail's censorship, and arrives into my hands, this means that the jail-QSO has indeed taken place. Henceforth, you will find your callsign in the 3W3RR jail-pedition log ext. Link as well as on twitter @RomanVega_com. Afterwards you will receive by snail mail a 3W3RR jail-pedition numbered QSL card. According to the jail's mail policies, a prisoner is only permitted to receive letters, postcards, photos and printouts. QSLs are considered postcards, and generally make it through. Do not send IRCs, postage stamps, green stamps or S.A.S.E., as all of these are considered contraband and immediately trashed (frequently along with the entire envelope's contents). Books and magazines mailed from private parties are not permitted. CDs and DVDs are also prohibited,."
Send your QSL-cards only, nothing else, to the current jail's address:
Roman Vega / # 59198-004 / MDC Brooklyn / P.O.Box 329002 / Brooklyn, NY 11232, U.S.A.
(Note: Romeo was transferred, in April 2015, to Georgia (CI McRae).
Prior to mailing Romeo a QSL card, better to verify that he hasn't been transferred to another jail by checking his current address at ext. Link
December 2013: The verdict - 18 years!
Ukrainian National Who Co-Founded Cybercrime Marketplace Sentenced To 18 Years In Prison
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2013
Roman Vega Co-Founded CarderPlanet, One of the First Online Marketplaces for Stolen Financial Data
BROOKLYN, NY – Earlier today, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, Roman Vega, one of the world’s most prolific cybercriminals, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Vega, a Ukrainian national who co-founded the notorious Internet website CarderPlanet, pled guilty in 2009 to conspiracies to commit money laundering and access device fraud. At the time of his arrest, Vega possessed over half a million stolen credit card numbers.
January 2020: released!
From the York County Prison (PA) where he was held from November 2019, Romeo was escorted to the airplane jetway at JFK airport and on February 1, 2020 landed in Russia.
