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Government The Courts United States

Russia and The US Fight Over Who Gets To Extradite A Hacker (cnn.com) 98

Posted by EditorDavid from the tug-of-war dept.
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: A young Russian alleged to have masterminded a massive hacking of social networks including LinkedIn and Dropbox is now at the center of an extradition struggle between the United States and Russia. Yevgeniy Nikulin was detained in October 2016, in the Czech Republic capital of Prague, after US authorities issued an international arrest warrant for him. He was on vacation there with his girlfriend. A grand jury indictment filed in 2016 in California charges him with computer intrusion and aggravated identity theft, among other offenses. Nikulin denies all the charges. If convicted of all charges, he could face a maximum sentence of more than 50 years in prison and more than $2 million in fines.

But soon after his arrest, Russian authorities also sought his extradition. The Russian charge referred to the alleged theft from an online money transfer company back in 2009. The amount involved was $3,450... The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said soon afterward it was "actively working with the Czech authorities to prevent the extradition of a Russian citizen to the United States."
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Russia and The US Fight Over Who Gets To Extradite A Hacker More

Russia and The US Fight Over Who Gets To Extradite A Hacker

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  • I wonder which taker he would opt for. I suspect it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; really screwed either way.

    • Re:Which? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26, 2017 @01:25PM (#55625459)
      I don't know the backstory, but based solely on the summary, it sounds more like Russia just wants to get him back home where he won't face much if any punishment rather than letting him go to the US. He will then probably join the Russia "defense" industry (maybe as an offer he can't refuse).

      • Re: Which? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26, 2017 @01:38PM (#55625509)

        It's more likely that he's worked for the Russians before and they don't want him to tell the Americans all the details.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I recall reading that Russia likes to recruit suitably experienced criminals into its various cybermischief units (e.g Fancybear, Cozybear, Internet Research Agency). Can't recall the exact link, though.

      "We would like to extradite this young man and offer him a job."

      • Re: Which? (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I recall the US doing the exact same thing.

  • I don't want him you can't have him (Score:4, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Sunday November 26, 2017 @01:29PM (#55625473) Journal

    This is just Putin reminding the current US administration who's boss.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What does Tony Danza have to do with it?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )

      Relentlessly portraying Putin as the demonic mastermind behind all that's going wrong in the West is wearing a bit thin for me. I have no connection with Russia, but I find much of the Kremlin's critique of Western (particularly US) foreign policy all too reasonable and plausible. Whether it comes from insincere actors or independent commentators, I couldn't care less; it's the content that counts.

      As for Putin himself, he's not the Antichrist. He's just a hard-headed pragmatist trying to keep Russia afloa

      • Re: I don't want him you can't have him (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yeah we Americans kill political and journalist dissidents under the guise of accidents, too.

        Here's reality: one party will always have more power than others. Which one do you want? If you want Russia, side with them, because they'll do the same thing America does when the tables are turned.

      • Relentlessly portraying Putin as the demonic mastermind behind all that's going wrong in the West is wearing a bit thin for me.

        Too fucking bad.

        We've got a president who JUST TODAY issued a coordinated statement with Vladimir Putin saying that there should be a crackdown on CNNi. That fat orange motherfucker's administration has Russian connections that they lied about in such numbers that when Putin sneezes, Trump catches a cold.

        I sincerely don't give a single fuck for what's "wearing thin" for you and wha

        • So, just curious, does Putin order drone strikes on his own citizens? You might want to clean your own house before you start criticizing others. Jails Russian citizens? America tries to jail Russian citizens with their bullshit international arrest warrants. Why aren't you protesting about that?

          CNN has a long history of lying their asses off about Trump. They're not called the Clinton News Network for nothing. Hell, Hillary has more connections to the Russians from the fake dossier than anything el

          • Not to mention signing off on Uranium One, a plot to take control of America's energy resources.

            You know the whole Uranium One story is made up, right? Nobody sold "20% of US uranium" to Russia. No uranium changed hands.

            You accuse CNN of making up lies about Trump and then you bring out "Uranium One"?

            • https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/935073656031666176

              Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signed a protocol amending the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement on April 13, 2010. It enables new co-operation between the Department of Energy and Rosatom.

              This document is from the United Nations Institute For Disarmament Research.

              It explicitly states that Rosatom, after 2013, would be interested in having 20-25% of the US SWU market and wanted assurances

  • If he's in Czech, then it's up to them. (Score:5, Informative)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Sunday November 26, 2017 @01:41PM (#55625517) Journal

    ... Not the US, not Russia. It's up to the Czech republic to decide which country to let him be extradited to.

    Or, they can decide to not allow him to be extradited at all. Regardless, it's up to them to weigh whatever they estimate the costs to themselves might be for making a decision that is unpopular with somebody else.

    Final answer, it's up the country he's currently in to decide when to allow, where to allow, and even *IF* to allow extradition. Full stop.

    • The Russian charge is from 2009, so why the long wait, it is because they suddenly want him back when faced with a warrant from the Americans.

      My money is that he part of their red team.

  • Hopefully Russia succeeds (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    50 years for hacking is retarded, there should be 0 extraditions to the US until they reform their justice system.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It is not retarded, it is extremist. The US "justice" system is just as fanatical, violent and absolutely convinced they are doing it right as any other fanatics.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        There is no justice system anywhere in the world. It's all law systems.

    • Would you rather do time in a Russian jail or American jail?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday November 26, 2017 @02:09PM (#55625631)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Russia might not have the most open and free system of legal justice, but the US incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, including North Korea. You might want to roll the dice and see if Russia will at least attempt to be reasonable

      Plus, I hear you get all the free tea you can drink on the flight to Russia.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Russia might not have the most open and free system of legal justice, but the US incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, including North Korea. You might want to roll the dice and see if Russia will at least attempt to be reasonable

        Plus, I hear you get all the free tea you can drink [bbc.com] on the flight to Russia.

        TFTFY.

    • Re:its the devil you know... (Score:4, Funny)

      by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer@noSPAm.earthlink.net> on Sunday November 26, 2017 @02:34PM (#55625711)

      the US incarcerates more people than any other country in the world

      We're number one!!! WOOOO! Yeah!

      USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

    • Re:its the devil you know... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dabadab ( 126782 ) on Sunday November 26, 2017 @03:10PM (#55625815)

      You might want to roll the dice and see if Russia will at least attempt to be reasonable

      The problem with you, Americans, is that you are too comfortably couched in your democracy and rule of the law. Yes, it is not perfect but if you think it is anything near what goes on in Russia that clearly shows how clueless you are.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        As an American, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how a 'Gran Jury' indictment in the state of California, warrants an International arrest warrant.

        The leap of authority there is baffling to me, how seemingly simple it appears state or even Federal US law, can suddenly extend beyond US borders.

        International Treaties are one thing. This however, just doesn't seem right to me at all.

      • What rule of law would that be? The one that incarcerates more people than anyone on the planet? What democracy would that be? The one that produced the worst President ever in history? I don't see Russia using drones to kill their own citizens. I don't see Russia issuing international arrest warrants over trivial issues. I think you need to take a step back, stop waving the flag like a patriotic MORAN, and take a long, hard look at yourselves. America is a horrible country compared to the rest of th

        • Mentioning the drone strikes is kind of stupid given that Russia had two civil wars in the past 25 years, and that is killing their own citizens by the very definition. Air strikes against field commanders were quite common back then.

    • The US incarcerates more people than North Korea, and our entire prison system is severely screwed up, but you can bet that North Korea murders/kills/executes more people, even if they don't brag about it.

      • The USA certainly executes more people than Russia, though -- even if you count Russia's extrajudicial executions/assassinations.

        • Executing murderers who have been duly tried in a court of law by a jury of citizens and afforded every opportunity of due process and appeal is so far from what goes on in Russia or most of the rest of the world it is incomparable. The fact that you cannot grasp that simple fact makes you a microcepallic in the first degree and not worth further conversation...

    • He's a Russian citizen, it's likely that after the US imprisons him he'd be kicked back to Russia anyway for whatever they're going to jail him for, but if Russia does first there's a decent chance he can avoid the US part of the equation at least

    • > Reminder: Aaron Schwartz was looking at 35 years in prison for nothing more than a clever wget script.

      This is incorrect. Aaron Swartz [check spelling] was attempting to download all of JSTOR, and its index information, in order to republish it for free. Doing this was not only criminal. It was stealing the resources of a non-profit which collects information and publishes, organized and usable, for medical and scientific research all over the world. It could make the resources available, for a short pe

    • Chelsea Manning was looking at 60 years in prison from Government prosecutors.

      Except Manning was facing those 60 for leaking classified materials. There were/are proper ways to whistleblow on classified projects and there are ways which it isn't proper. If you go outside the bounds dealing with classified materials and deliberately release them (please note, deliberate is different than inadvertent), you can expect to be facing significant amount of time in jail.

      • Strangely enough, Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning and didn't pardon Edward Snowden. Yet Edward went through all the proper channels and followed proper procedure for handling a leak of classified materials. I wonder what exactly was considered during the pardons; time served perhaps?

    • I think you meant 'more people per capita.'

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the second-highest per-capita incarceration rate, behind Seychelles (which in 2014 had a total prison population of 735 out of a population of around 92,000). In 2013 in the USA, there were 698 persons incarcerated per 100,000 population.

        Nope. [wikipedia.org] =/

    • Because clearly, incarceration numbers, regardless of what those people did, is the key metric to determine if a society is just or not. Never mind that North Korea is more likely to just execute people who disagree with the government... Talk about infantile logic.

  • How is it that we can't afford trials for more than half of our indictments at home, but we can afford to try and inflict our domestic laws on people in Prague? Surely Microsoft and Dropbox do enough business in the Czech Republic to file local charges there, or is it just that they already have the California criminal justice system on retainer?

    • we can afford to try and inflict our domestic laws on people in Prague

      Not sure what you mean. Extradition implies that a person has committed crimes in another country and is if he is extradited, he will be tried in that country, not in Czechia.

      • Extradition implies that the person being accused is in a different country from the prosecutor making the accusation. It doesn't speak to the location of the crime. This fellow is accused of having accessed computers that are located in California via the internet. The warrant doesn't speak to his physical location when he did this, but odds are he was in Russia then. He came out of Russia on vacation, and these prosecutors want to snatch him up before he returns to Russia where they don't have access to h

  • I can't be fully sorry for him (Score:3)

    by guacamole ( 24270 ) on Sunday November 26, 2017 @03:42PM (#55625965)

    If this man is allegedly intelligent enough to break into Linkedin and Dropbox, than he should have known better than travel to a country that's an enthusiastic EU and NATO member. This is not a first. Some of the Russian black hat hackers or mobsters think they can con either russian companies or individuals or western, and then retire in some nice quiet bucolic place like Greece, Spain, or Czech republic.

  • Extradition ebay. See how badly they want him.

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