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Yaroslav Vasinskyi, also known as Rabotnik, will serve a 13-year, seven-month sentence for his role with an infamous ransomware gang.
A 24-year-old Ukrainian national has been sentenced to a 13-year, seven-month stint in prison for his part in more than 2,500 ransomware attacks.
Yaroslav Vasinskyi, who also went by the nom de guerre Rabotnik while working with the REvil ransomware gang, was arrested in Poland in 2021.
He was extradited to the US the next year. In August of 2022, he pled guilty to 11 charges relating to his hacking spree, including conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, damage to protected computers, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In addition to the sentence, Vasinskyi has been ordered to pay more than US$6 million in restitution for his crimes. The Department of Justice also obtained a large sum of money through related civil forfeiture cases in 2023. This included nearly 40 bitcoin and US$6.1 million traced to ransomware payments to Vasinskyi’s fellow hackers.
“As this sentencing shows, the Justice Department is working with our international partners and using all tools at our disposal to identify cyber criminals, capture their illicit profits, and hold them accountable for their crimes,” US Attorney-General Merrick B. Garland said in a DOJ statement.
“Deploying the REvil ransomware variant, the defendant reached out across the globe to demand hundreds of millions of dollars from US victims,” Deputy Attorney-General Lisa Monaco said.
“But this case shows the Justice Department’s reach is also global – working with our international partners, we are bringing to justice those who target US victims, and we are disrupting the broader cyber crime ecosystem.”
FBI director Christopher Wray also praised “close collaboration with our worldwide partners” for assisting with Vasinskyi’s arrest.
“We will continue to relentlessly pursue cyber criminals like Vasinksyi wherever they may hide, while 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.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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