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The alleged money launderer was found to have over €500,000 in crypto on his phone.
A Russian national suspected of assisting the Hive ransomware gang with money laundering has been arrested at his seaside home in Cyprus.
According to reports from French law enforcement, the individual was tracked down by his activity on social media, and following his arrest, authorities found €570,000 in cryptocurrency on his phone.
Nicolas Guidoux, deputy director of the fight against cyber crime at the La Direction Nationale de la Police Judiciaire (the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police), said in a LinkedIn post that his office worked alongside Europol, Eurojust, and Cyprian law enforcement to make the arrest.
The alleged money launderer has been referred for prosecution at a Paris court. Hive was known to be particularly active against French targets, having racked up at least 59 French victims.
The Hive gang was seemingly dismantled in January 2023 when a multinational police operation took control of its servers and other network infrastructure.
The group’s dedicated leak site, where it publishes the data of victims who refuse to pay, and its negotiation portal were taken down.
In the months leading up to the takedown operation, the FBI – which led the operation – had also successfully infiltrated Hive’s networks and was able to secure the gang’s encryption keys. These were shared with Hive’s victims, allowing them to recover data without paying expensive ransoms. A total of 300 keys were shared with victims who were being extorted at the time, and a further thousand with previous victims.
Hive had been active since at least June 2021, both on its own behalf and as a ransomware-as-a-service operation. The group and its affiliates attacked over 1,500 companies globally and made more than US$100 million in ransoms.
The FBI’s efforts to secure encryption keys saved victims US$130 million.
US Attorney-General Merrick B Garland said at the time, “Cyber crime is a constantly evolving threat. But as I have said before, the Justice Department will spare no resource to identify and bring to justice anyone, anywhere, who targets the United States with a ransomware attack.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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