Ukrainian hacker sentenced to 6 years in U.S. prison

The information that Yeliseyev sold, which had been stolen from approximately 40,000 hacked computers, included over 62,000 credit card numbers.

By Patrick Howell O'Neill

August 24, 2018

(Wikicommons)

Ukrainian national Ruslan Yeliseyev was sentenced to six years in U.S. prison on Friday for hacking and trafficking stolen financial information.

Yeliseyev, 42, sold stolen financial information on Russian-language criminal forums.

“The information that Yeliseyev sold, which had been stolen from approximately 40,000 hacked computers, included over 62,000 credit card numbers as well as usernames and passwords to victims’ online banking accounts,” the Department of Justice said in a statement after his sentencing.

Ukraine does not extradite its own citizens. However, Yeliseyev was arrested in 2016 when he was vacationing in Israel. He was then extradited to the United States for prosecution.

The Justice Department has used the arrest tactic to nab hackers in the past few years.

A pair of Romanians accused of an international hacking and identity theft conspiracy were extradited from Romania to the United States in May.

In March, the Justice Department extradited Yevgeniy Nikulin from the Czech Republic. Nikulin was allegedly tied to breaches at LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring.

In February, Spain extradited Russian hacker Peter Levashov to the United States for his alleged role in a massive botnet that pumped out a torrent of spam emails for profit.