Peter Strozniak asks a question many should be asking: how did this go on for so long without being detected?

One of New Jersey’s smallest credit unions was directly connected to a sprawling criminal enterprise that led to the largest customer data theft case in history, which involved the nation’s biggest bank, according to court documents recently unsealed by New York prosecutors.

On Dec. 4, Yuri Lebedev pleaded not guilty to conspiracy in Manhattan’s U.S. District Court to bribing a senior executive of Helping Other People Excel Federal Credit Union of Jackson, N.J., which was liquidated by the NCUA last month.

Federal prosecutors alleged Lebedev and others participated in a bribery scheme to gain control of the credit union in order to conceal the operations of Coin.mx, an unlicensed Internet Bitcoin exchange service that allegedly laundered money for criminals.

Read more on Credit Union Bitcoin Fraud Tied to JPMorgan Hack