The detention of alleged Russian hacker Roman Seleznev in the Maldives, which has been labelled as "kidnapping" by Moscow, had been carried out by US agents after Maldivian authorities had asked for help, US attorneys said Monday.
Computer wizard Roman Seleznev — who is currently awaiting trial in Seattle on 40 felony counts of bank fraud, intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft —managed to evade the Secret Service for more than a decade.
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.
In July 2014, US secret service agents detained Seleznev in the Maldives, took him to Guam and then transferred him to Seattle before he boarded his flight home to Russia after vacationing with his family in the island nation.
On Monday, the trial of Seleznev on charges of cybercrime began in Seattle.
Assistant US Attorney Seth Wilkinson said Seleznev's detention had been carried out by US agents with permission from Maldivian authorities.
"The Maldives does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, there is not a formal agreement. So the US agents called the Maldivians and they told them about Roman Seleznev, and they asked for help. And the Maldivians agreed to hand Mr Seleznev over to the US authorities," Wilkinson said.
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