United States of America has released hacker Roman Seleznev under a prisoner exchange program with Russia.
United States of America has released hacker Roman Seleznev under a prisoner exchange program with Russia.
Seleznev was arrested while in the Maldives and was implementing a lengthy 27 year prison sentence for his involvement in a large scale credit card fraud scheme when this exchange came into effect under a prisoner exchange program between US, Russia and Germany.
He was arrested in 2014 while he was at the Male' airport for departure from the Maldives after visiting the country on vacation with his family. America's Secret Service conducted a special operation in the Maldives, through which they arrested Seleznev and took him to Guam and then transferred him to Seattle.
According to US prosecutors, the 30-year-old son of prominent Russian lawmaker Valery Seleznev hacked into retail point-of-sale systems and installed malware in order to steal more than two million credit card numbers from businesses between October 2009 and October 2013.
Through the scheme, he stole USD 169 million, affecting 3,700 banks.
He was found guilty and sentence in April 2017 for a 27 year prison term.
At the time, US and Maldives Police stated that Seleznev had been placed under arrest by the Maldivian Police. However, 'Haveeru' news found at the time that Seleznev was taken into the departure hall and taken into custody by US agents, with US agents having shown local police an Interpol notice.
Russia also claims that Seleznev had been 'kidnapped' by US in collaboration with Maldives. His lawyers took up the issue during his remand hearings in Guam before he was officially on trial. The court in Guam found the arrest to be rightful. America's district court also later ruled that there can be no further deliberations in regard to the arrest.
This prisoner exchange program also saw the release of many Europeans and Americans from Russian prisons, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
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