Peter Yuryevich Levashov, besides known equally Peter Severa, was arrested inward Apr this twelvemonth when he was travelling amongst his menage unit of measurement to Barcelona, Kingdom of Spain from his habitation inward Russia—a province without an extradition treaty amongst the United States—for his purpose inward a huge estimator botnet.
However, since Levashov has previously worked amongst for Vladimir Putin's United Russian Federation Party for 10 years, he fears that the US government would torture him for information nearly his political go if sent in that place to facial expression upwards the charges against him.
"If I larn to the U.S., I volition give-up the ghost inward a year. They desire to larn information of a armed forces nature in addition to nearly the United Russian Federation party," RIA tidings means quoted Levashov equally saying. "I volition hold upwards tortured, inside a twelvemonth I volition hold upwards killed, or I volition kill myself."
Levashov was defendant of operating the Kelihos botnet—a global network of to a greater extent than than 100,000 infected computers used to deliver spam, pocket login passwords in addition to infect computers amongst ransomware in addition to other malware since at to the lowest degree 2010.
While initially it was speculated that Levashov was involved inward 2016 U.S. election hacking, the FBI made it clear that the suspect was arrested due to his interest inward the Kelihos botnet in addition to spamming targets for trying in addition to forcing them to purchase worthless stock.
According to the FBI officials, Levashov used the same IP address to operate Kelihos botnet that he used to access his electronic mail in addition to other online accounts inward his name, including Apple iCloud in addition to Google Gmail accounts.
The Department of Justice's indictment said the Russian suspect allegedly used Kelihos to distribute hundreds of millions of spam e-mails every year, in addition to pump-and-dump stock scams, peculiarly targeting Microsoft Windows machines for infection.
Besides conducting spamming operations, Levashov besides allegedly used the Kelihos botnet to infect end-user computers amongst malware in addition to harvest passwords to online in addition to banking concern accounts belonging to thousands of Americans.
The US of America had requested Levashov's arrest, in addition to later on his arrest inward Apr 2016, Russian Federation inward September filed a counter-extradition asking for Levashov hours earlier the master extradition hearing.
However, Spain's High Court has approved the U.S. extradition asking of Levashov, who has been charged amongst wire fraud in addition to unauthorised interception of electronic communications.
US of America prosecutors are seeking a 52-year jail judgement against Levashov, who has already denied the charges against him, Reuters reported.
Levashov has straight off simply 3 days to appeal his extradition to the United States.
