Pierluigi Paganini
April 19, 2023
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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