Georgia Extradites Russian Hacker Accused of Massive Data Theft to US
A Russian hacker, Andrey Tyurin, 35, who was arrested in Georgia in December 2017, has been extradited to the United States.
Tyurin is accused of taking part in the biggest recorded theft of consumer bank data in the US, including more than 80 million JP Morgan Chase customers, in a massive hacking scheme uncovered by US federal prosecutors three years ago.
As the federals say, the Russian hacker is alleged to have participated in a global hacking ring that ran illegal internet casinos and payment processors and targeted the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and brokers such as E-Trade and Scottrade.
Prosecutors said a total of more than 100 million customers of the hacked companies had been affected.
Tyurin was detained by Georgian law enforcers on the request of the US side in December, 2017, and his pre-trial detention was extended several times.
His pre-extradition term was to expire on September 12, 2018. In addition to the United States, Russia also requested his extradition.
Tbilisi City Court decided on August 10 that the Russian hacker needed to be extradited. Tyurin's lawyer appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and demanded the withdrawl of this ruling.
However, the Supreme Court did not satisfy the motion and upheld the decision of the lower instance court and stated that the hacker could be extradited either to the US or to Russia, adding this decision had to be made by the Justice Ministry of Georgia. The latter decided to hand the Russian national over to the USA.
The Secret Service of the United States thanked the Ministry of Justice of Georgia and the Chief Prosecutor's Office for its assistance in the detention and extradition of Tyurin.
The extradition is tied to 2015 charges against several men, including Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein, who were extradited from Israel to the US alongside US citizen Joshua Samuel Aaron.
As the federals said, Tyurin was engaged in an extensive computer hacking campaign targeting financial institutions, brokerage firms and financial news publishers in the United States on behalf of Shalon, from 2012 to 2015.
The US Department of Justice reports that the Russian national is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, which carries a maximum prison term of five years; one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison term of 30 years; four counts of computer hacking, each of which carries a maximum prison term of five years; one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, which carries a maximum prison term of five years; one count of conspiracy to violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which carries a maximum prison term of five years; one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, which carries a maximum prison term of 30 years; and aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory consecutive term of imprisonment of two years.
By Thea Morrison