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Canada has handed one in all its former authorities staff over to the US to face costs of digital extortion by ransomware. Upon his arrest, Canadian authorities additionally seized $28 million in cryptocurrencies.

The 34-year-old Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins was introduced from his house in Quebec, Canada to look in courtroom Thursday in Tampa, Florida. His indictment alleges that he participated within the type of ransomware often called NetWalker to commit numerous cybercrimes of extortion in 2020, in accordance with a Division of Justice transient. 

Whereas Vachon-Desjardins’ victims weren’t specified, the hacking collective beneath the NetWalker title was linked to thousands and thousands of {dollars} in ransom schemes, together with wresting $1.1 million from UC San Francisco’s Faculty of Drugs and extra from different tutorial establishments in 2020.

Learn extra:  A Timeline of the Greatest Ransomware Assaults 

It isn’t clear how a lot cash Vachon-Desjardins allegedly extorted from victims, however Canadian officers executing a search warrant of his house in Quebec seized 719 Bitcoin, valued at roughly $28,151,582 as of right this moment’s date, and $790,000 in Canadian foreign money, in accordance with the DOJ transient. The indictment had alleged that $27 million was traceable to proceeds of his cybercrimes.

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