Cyber Crime

Russian national sentenced to time served for committing money laundering for the Ryuk ransomware operation

Russian national Denis Mihaqlovic Dubnikov has been sentenced to time served for committing money laundering for the Ryuk ransomware operation.

Russian national Denis Dubnikov (30) has been sentenced to time served for committing money laundering for the Ryuk ransomware group. The man was also ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution.  

On February 7, 2023, Dubnikov pleaded guilty in the U.S. to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering for the Ryuk ransomware operation. The man was arrested in Amsterdam in November 2021 and was extradited to the US in August 2022.

“According to the indictment, between at least August 2018 and August 2021, Dubnikov and his co-conspirators are alleged to have knowingly and intentionally laundered the proceeds of ransomware attacks on individuals and organizations throughout the United States and abroad.” reads the press release published by DoJ in August. “Specifically, Dubnikov and his accomplices laundered ransom payments extracted from victims of Ryuk ransomware attacks.”

The Russian national received ransom payments from Ryuk operators and along with his co-conspirators used various financial transactions to conceal the ownership and the nature of the laundered proceeds.

According to the investigators, in July 2019, Dubnikov laundered more than $400,000 in Ryuk ransom proceeds. Individuals involved in the conspiracy laundered at least $70 million in ransom proceeds.

According to a joint report published in January 2021 by security firms Advanced-intel and HYAS, Ryuk operators earned, at the time of publishing the analysis, more than $150 million worth of Bitcoin from ransom paid by their victims.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Ryuk ransomware)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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