Police Seize $1.3 Million in Crypto From ‘Prolific’ Ransomware Gang That Attacked US Energy Companies

Two people have been arrested and $1.3 million in digital assets seized after a police raid in Ukraine targeting a notorious ransomware gang.

The September 28th raid, which involved numerous international crime-fighting agencies and searches across seven different properties, targeted a sophisticated hacker group responsible for tens of millions of dollars in cybercrimes.

In a new press release, Europol describes how the criminal operation worked.

“The organized crime group is suspected of having committed a string of targeted attacks against very large industrial groups in Europe and North America from April 2020 onward. The criminals would deploy malware and steal sensitive data from these companies, before encrypting their files.

They would then proceed to offer a decryption key in return for a ransom payment of several millions of euros, threatening to leak the stolen data on the dark web should their demands not be met.”

The Kyiv Post notes that the unnamed 25-year-old ringleader “hacked over 100 businesses, including world-famous energy and tourism companies, in Europe and the US.”

Other assets seized in the raid include $375,000 in cash and two luxury vehicles valued at over $250,000.

Europol’s Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) worked with law enforcement officials from France, Ukraine, Interpol, and the Atlanta field office of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the course of the investigation.

There have been other notable cybercrime arrests recently, including a dragnet that caught 14 alleged crypto scammers in Taiwan last month.

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Featured Image: Shutterstock/igorstevanovic