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Russian Hacker arresed in Spain is accused of sending spam

The U.S. Department of Justice arrested a Russian citizen Peter Levashov in Barcelona at the request of the American authorities

Russian programmer Peter Levashov was arrested in Barcelona at the request of the United States as part of the operation on liquidation of the botnet Kelihos. The Press-service of the U.S. Department of Justice reported about it.

"In order to prevent further infection on 8 April we embarked on the extraordinary task of blocking malicious domains associated with the Kelihos botnet . This case demonstrates the FBI's commitment to the principle of the search and eradication of cyber threats, no matter in which part of the world they are", — the special agent of the FBI Charge Ritzman stated in the press service statement.

It is reported that, according to American intelligence, Peter Levashov "allegedly operated the Kelihos botnet from about 2010."

"Malware Kelihos was intended for computers with Microsoft Windows operating system. The infected computers became part a botnet, and was managed online by decentralized system of command and control", — stated in the message of Ministry.

It is noted that botnet Kelihos "generate and distributed huge amounts of junk e-mails", including advertising on counterfeit medicines. "Kelihos was also responsible for the installation of additional malware on the victim's computer, including programs that intercept passwords of Bank accounts of users", — stated in a press release.

Russian citizen Peter Levashov was arrested last week in Barcelona on suspicion of cybercrime. According to his wife, Maria, in Spain they were on vacation together with his son. The police broke into the room, where the family lived, in the night and broke open the door. A woman with a child was locked in another room from which they were not allowed outside for two hours.


According to Levashov wife, Spanish law enforcement acted on the request of the US authorities for his extradition in connection with suspicious of involvement in "intervention" of the presidential elections in the United States. In Barcelona court session has passed on which the decision on putting Russian citizen into custody.The "Dangerous hacker" was not allowed to use the services of lawyer of his choice.

In press-service of the Ministry of International Affairs of Spain later announced that Peter Levashov is "one of the most wanted criminals." It's should be noted that according to the British organization Spamhaus, which tracks spammers, man named Peter Levashov takes the seventh place in the top 10 global spammers and named in this list one of the "KING of spam".
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