Russian Hacker Extradited To Face Charges Over JPMorgan Attack

A Russian hacker has been extradited to the United States to face charges related to a massive breach targeting JPMorgan Chase and other U.S. companies. Reuters reported that 35-year-old Andrei Tyurin was arrested in Georgia by request of U.S. authorities, according to U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s office in Manhattan.

The massive cyberbreach involved stealing the information of more than 100 million customers of at least nine financial and publishing firms. The stolen information was then used to drive stock manipulations, illegal online casinos and credit card fraud. The global network of cybercrime reportedly included illegal online casinos and payments that ran from Israel to the U.S., hitting Cyprus, Azerbaijan and Switzerland.

In addition to JPMorgan, other victims included E*TRADE Financial Corporation, Scottrade, Dow Jones and the publisher The Wall Street Journal.

In 2015, Gery Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron and Ziv Orenstein were listed as the defendants in the indictment and had 23 charges brought against them, which include computer hacking, securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiring to commit money laundering. The cybercriminals laundered the proceeds of their criminal activities through more than 75 different shell companies and brokerage accounts located worldwide. The team allegedly used aliases and over 30 fake passports to control the accounts.

“They colluded with corrupt international bank officials who willfully ignored its criminal nature in order to profit from, as a co-conspirator described it to Shalon, their payment processing ‘casino/software/pharmaceutical cocktail,’” the indictment of the three suspects stated.

U.S. authorities arrested Shalon and Orenstein, two Israeli nationals, in 2015. Aaron, a U.S. citizen, was finally sent back to America in 2016 after seven months of negotiations between U.S. authorities and a migrant detention center near Moscow.

Tyurin is charged with computer hacking, wire fraud and conspiracy. The most serious charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.