Five people have been arrested in Europe in two separate, unrelated cases related to ransomware, Ars Technica reported Thursday (July 10).
In one case, former Russian professional basketball player Daniil Kasatkin was arrested in France at the request of U.S. authorities, who allege that he negotiated ransom payments with organizations that had been hacked by a ransomware syndicate, according to the report. The U.S. aims to extradite Kasatkin.
Kasatkin’s attorney told reporters that his client is innocent of all charges, adding that Kasatkin bought a secondhand computer and didn’t touch anything on it, per the report.
“It was either hacked, or the hacker sold it to him to act under the cover of another person,” the attorney said, according to the report.
Reuters reported Thursday that the attorney said U.S. authorities suspect Kasatkin was involved in ransomware attacks that targeted U.S. companies and federal institutions.
That report also said that Russia’s embassy in Paris has demanded consular access to Kasatkin, who is a Russian citizen.
In another, unrelated case, British authorities arrested four individuals in connection with ransomware attacks that targeted M&S, Co-op and Harrods, according to the Ars Tecnica report. The attacks were attributed to the hacker collective Scattered Spider.
The U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said in a Thursday press release that one of the individuals arrested is 17 years old, two are 19 and one is 20.
They were arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offenses, blackmail, money laundering and participating in the activities of an organized crime group, according to the release. They are in custody for questioning related to the April cyberattacks.
“Since these attacks took place, specialist NCA cybercrime investigators have been working at pace and the investigation remains one of the Agency’s highest priorities,” Deputy Director Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said in the release.
It was reported in May that the cyberattacks struck the three U.K. retailers over a two-week period; the incidents involved disrupting online sales and certain payments and stealing customer data; and the suspected culprit was Scattered Spider, which previously made headlines for a 2023 cyberattack on MGM Resorts.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported in April that cyber and scam-related losses reached $16.6 billion in 2024, up 33% from the previous year.
