U.S. Deports Russian Hacker a Year Ahead of Sentenced Release

The U.S. has released Alexei Burkovm, a high-profile Russian cybercriminal, from its custody at least a year before his prison sentence was expected to finish, handing him over to Russian authorities despite long resisting Moscow’s efforts to retrieve him, reports the Wall Street Journal. Burkov was extradited to the U.S. in late 2019 from Israel on hacking-related charges, including fraud, identity theft, computer intrusion and money laundering.

Burkovm pleaded guilty to running web forums where hackers swapped stolen data and in June 2020 was sentenced to nine years in prison, including time served while being held in custody by the Israelis since 2015. Burkov is also wanted in Russia on hacking charges as well and is the subject of an Interpol red notice from 2017. Burkov was widely seen as a valuable asset to Moscow and was believed to possess detailed knowledge of the Russian cybercriminal world that would be valuable both to U.S. and Russian authorities. His release comes as the Biden administration is engaged in bilateral talks with Moscow on cybersecurity issues with a particular focus on curtailing ransomware attacks, many of which are carried out by criminal gangs operating in Russia.