Deniss Zolotarjovs, a suspected member of the Russian Karakurt ransomware gang, has been charged in a US court with allegedly conspiring to commit money laundering, wire fraud and Hobbs Act extortion. The 33-year-old Latvian national was arrested in Georgia and extradited to the United States earlier this month.
According to court documents, Zolotarjovs was involved in stealing data from at least six US companies between August 2021 and November 2023. He and his Karakurt cohorts then allegedly extorted the victim organizations, demanding a cryptocurrency ransom payment, and in some cases leaked the victims’ sensitive information online.
In one case, a target paid the gang $1.3 million in bitcoin after the criminals harassed its employees and demanded payment in exchange for not publishing the data. Zolotarjovs was in charge of conducting negotiations with Karakurt’s victims for so-called “cold-Case extortions,” where organizations refused to pay the ransom demand initially, prompting the gang to put more pressure on victims.
This is the first alleged Karakurt member to be arrested and extradited.
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/26/karakut_ransomware_scum_charged/