Russian man accused of laundering cryptocurrency extradited to the US

The Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department managed the Russian national’s extradition.

Denis Mihaqlovic Dubnikov has been extradited from the Netherlands to the United States in order to face charges in the District of Oregon.

In August of last year, a federal grand jury in Portland, Oregon, allegedly indicted Dubnikov for his claimed participation in an international crypto-money laundering scheme, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

According to the official news release, the indictment said that the 29-year-old Russian national and his collaborators had full knowledge of laundering the profits of ransomware attacks conducted against people and businesses in the United States and overseas.

Dubnikov and his co-conspirators are accused of laundering ransom money seized from victims of Ryuk ransomware attacks, which is a kind of ransomware mostly ascribed to the hacking organisation WIZARD SPIDER.

It is alleged that Ryuk has compromised governments, academic institutions, healthcare providers, manufacturers, and technology corporations.

The Department of Justice said that all scheme participants, including Ryuk, Dubnikov, his associates, and others, engaged in several financial transactions after collecting ransom money.

Some of them were international financial transactions, and their primary purpose was to conceal the origin, source, location, ownership, and management of the ransom funds.

Dubnikov is suspected to have laundered more than $400,000 in ransom earnings from Ryuk in July 2019, while other conspirators laundered at least $70 million.

The accused was detained in Amsterdam last November and had his first federal court appearance in Oregon’s District of Oregon on August 17.

The Russian citizen faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $500,000 if convicted.

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