REvil hacker Yaroslav Vasinskyi sentenced to long prison sentence
Yaroslav Vasinskyi, also known as Rabotnik, will serve a sentence of 13 years and seven months for his role in an infamous ransomware gang.
A 24-year-old Ukrainian citizen has been sentenced to 13 years and seven months in prison for his role in more than 2,500 ransomware attacks.
Yaroslav Vasinskyi, who also used the nom de guerre Rabotnik while working with the REvil ransomware gang, was arrested in Poland in 2021.
He was extradited to the United States the following year. In August 2022, he pleaded guilty to 11 charges related to his hacking spree, including conspiracy to commit computer fraud and related activities, damage to protected computers, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In addition to the sentence, Vasinskyi has been ordered to pay more than $6 million in restitution for his crimes. The Justice Department also made a large sum of money through related civil forfeiture cases in 2023. This included nearly 40 bitcoins and $6.1 million related to ransomware payments to Vasinskyi’s fellow hackers.
“As this ruling shows, the Department of Justice is working with our international partners and using every tool at our disposal to identify cybercriminals, capture their ill-gotten gains, and hold them accountable for their crimes,” said U.S. Attorney General, Merrick B. Garland. in a statement from the Department of Justice.
“By deploying the REvil ransomware variant, the defendant spread across the globe to demand hundreds of millions of dollars from American victims,” said Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
“But this case shows that the Justice Department’s reach is also global: By working with our international partners, we are bringing to justice those who target American victims and disrupting the broader cybercrime ecosystem.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray also praised the “close collaboration with our global partners” for assisting in Vasinskyi’s arrest.
“We will continue to relentlessly pursue cybercriminals like Vasinksyi wherever they hide, as we disrupt their criminal schemes, seize their money and infrastructure, and target their enablers and criminal associates to the fullest extent of the law,” Wray said.
