prison
Karakurt extortion gang ‘cold case’ negotiator gets 8.5 years in prison
A Latvian national extradited to the United States was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for his “cold case” negotiator role in the Russian Karakurt ransomware group. 35-year-old Deniss Zolotarjovs (Денисс Золотарёвс) of Moscow, Russia, was arrested in Georgia, Eastern Europe, in December 2023, and pleaded guilty in July 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire […]
Romanian leader of online swatting ring gets 4 years in prison
A Romanian national who led an online swatting ring that targeted more than 75 public officials, multiple journalists, and four religious institutions was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison. Swatting is a dangerous criminal harassment tactic involving making false reports to emergency responders of an ongoing violent threat at a target’s address to provoke an […]
Money launderer linked to $230M crypto heist gets 70 months in prison
22-year-old Evan Tangeman of Newport Beach, California, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for laundering funds stolen in a massive $230 million cryptocurrency heist. According to court documents, Tangeman (also known as “E,” “Tate,” and “Evan|Exchanger”) helped the suspects behind the crypto-heist launder at least $3.5 million between October 2023 and May 2025. Fourteen suspects […]
Yanluowang ransomware access broker gets 81 months in prison
A Russian national was sentenced to nearly 7 years in prison after pleading guilty to acting as an initial access broker (IAB) for Yanluowang ransomware attacks. As 26-year-old Aleksey Olegovich Volkov (also known online as “chubaka.kor” and “nets”) admitted in his November guilty plea, he targeted at least eight companies across the United States between July […]
Florida woman imprisoned for massive Microsoft license fraud scheme
A Florida woman was sentenced to 22 months in prison for running a massive years-long scheme to traffic thousands of stolen Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity (COA) labels. 52-year-old Heidi Richards (also known as Heidi Hastings, Heidi Shaffer, and Heidi Williams), who operated an e-commerce business called Trinity Software Distribution, was also ordered to pay a […]
Ukrainian gets 5 years for helping North Koreans infiltrate US firms
A Ukrainian national was sentenced to five years in prison for providing North Korean IT workers with stolen identities that helped them infiltrate U.S. companies. 39-year-old Oleksandr Didenko of Kyiv, Ukraine, pleaded guilty in November 2025 to aggravated identity theft and wire fraud conspiracy after being arrested in Poland in May 2024. This week, he was sentenced to […]
Glendale man gets 5 years in prison for role in darknet drug ring
A Glendale man was sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison for his role in a darknet drug trafficking operation that sold cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, and ketamine to customers across the United States. 36-year-old Davit Avalyan received a 57-month sentence from U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson in Los Angeles after pleading guilty in October […]
Hacker gets seven years for breaching Rotterdam and Antwerp ports
The Amsterdam Court of Appeal sentenced a 44-year-old Dutch national to seven years in prison for multiple crimes, including computer hacking and attempted extortion. The man was arrested in 2021 and convicted in 2022 by the Amsterdam District Court, but he appealed the sentence because authorities had unlawfully intercepted his communications, deriving incriminating evidence. These communications […]
Man behind in-flight Evil Twin WiFi attacks gets 7 years in prison
A 44-year-old man was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison for operating an “evil twin” WiFi network to steal the data of unsuspecting travelers during flights and at various airports across Australia. The man, an Australian national, was charged in July 2024 after Australian authorities had confiscated his equipment in April and confirmed that he […]
BreachForums hacking forum admin resentenced to three years in prison
Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, the 22-year-old behind the notorious BreachForums hacking forum, was resentenced today to three years in prison after a federal appeals court overturned his prior sentence of time served and 20 years of supervised release. Fitzpatrick, of New York, operated under the alias “Pompompurin” and created the BreachForums hacking forum in 2022 after the FBI […]