By Sean Lyngaas, CNN
U. S. officials deported a key player in the global Russian cybercriminal who sentenced him to nine years in prison in the United States in 2020 for his alleged role in a scheme that defrauded Americans of millions of dollars, according to the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
On Monday, ICE agents took Alexei Burkov, 31, on a flight from John F International Airport. Kennedy of New York, ICE spokesman Dani Bennett told CNN.
The Russian government arrested Burkov after his arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on Tuesday, according to the Russian Interior Ministry. In Russia, Burkov is accused of credit card fraud and exchanging sensitive monetary data, an activity that allegedly took place between 2008 and 2015. Irina Volk, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, said in a statement.
This is one of the most significant developments in a cybercrime case since President Joe Biden suggested to Russian President Vladimir Putin in June that he crack down on hackers operating from Russian soil following a series of ransomware attacks against U. S. companies.
Prior to his arrest in 2015, U. S. officials Burkov, a key player in the Russian cybercriminal underworld, where he allegedly ran a website that allegedly facilitated more than $20 million in credit card fraud. He also ran an invitation-only internet forum that served as a gathering point for “elite cybercriminals,” according to the Justice Department.
After being extradited from Israel to the United States in 2019 and tried, Burkov was sentenced through a federal sentence in June 2020 to nine years in prison for identity theft, cash laundering and other alleged crimes.
Until recently, Burkov had faced more than 3 more years in prison in the United States, according to his initial sentence, which included time spent in custody. But after a court file remains sealed, Burkov was released from the criminal workplace on Aug. 25 and transferred to ICE, U. S. officials said.
“This was not a [prisoner] exchange,” Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman told CNN. He declined to comment on the main points of the case and referred questions to ICE.
It is unclear what Burkov’s legal fate will be in Russia. The Russian embassy in Washington responded to a request for comment.
Gregory Stambaugh, Burkov’s lawyer at his U. S. trial, responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
Burkov’s return to Russia is just the latest step in a long-standing legal and geopolitical drama.
After Burkov’s 2015 arrest in Israel, the U. S. and Russian governments pushed to extradite him. In an obvious last-of-the-art hotel effort in this case, the Russian government arrested an Israeli-American woman in April 2019 for allegedly transporting marijuana to Moscow’s airport. with Burkov’s extradition to the United States, and gave the impression in a Federal Court in Virginia in November 2019.
His deportation comes as U. S. officials are skeptical that the Russian government will decrease the activities of Russian-based cybercriminals, who reportedly forced a major U. S. pipeline operator to comply with the russian pipeline. USA To close for days in May. indication ” that Moscow had cracked down on ransomware groups.
This is the first time that the case of a young Russian cybercriminal has caused friction between Moscow and Washington.
Police in the Czech Republic arrested Russian national Yevgeniy Nikulin in 2016 at the request of U. S. authorities, who accused him of hacking the professional networking site LinkedIn in 2012. in September 2020 he was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.
“Russia is known to use a lot of equipment to prevent its citizens from being extradited to the United States to face criminal charges,” Shane Stansbury, a former deputy U. S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, told CNN. I wonder if filing a competitive extradition request is one of those tools. “
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