Denis Dubnikov, a 30-year-old Russian citizen accused of laundering money from hackers who extorted ransoms from American companies and organizations around the world, pleaded guilty on February 6 in federal court in Oregon.
Oregon attorney Natalie White made the announcement on Tuesday.
Between August 2018 and August 2021, Dubnikov laundered hackers’ illegal proceeds from Ryuk ransomware attacks, according to court documents. Participants in the scheme laundered a total of at least $70 million.
In particular, in July 2019, an American company paid a ransom of 250 bitcoins to Ryuk extortionists after a hacker attack. At the same time, Denis Dubnikov, who was in Moscow on July 11, 2019, received 35 bitcoins from an accomplice, which at the time cost around $400,000. The bitcoins received by Dubnikov came directly from a ransom paid by an American company. Dubnikov converted the bitcoins into Tether cryptocurrency and passed them on to a second accomplice, who eventually exchanged them for Chinese yuan.
Dubnikov is co-founder of cryptocurrency exchanges Coyote Crypto and Egg Change.
On November 2, 2021, Dubnikov was arrested in Amsterdam at the request of the United States and extradited on August 16, 2022.
The day after his extradition, he appeared in federal district court in Oregon.
The money laundering conspiracy is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, three years of post-release supervision and a $500,000 fine. Denis Dubnikov is due to be sentenced on April 11, 2023.
The FBI was investigating the case. The Ministry of Justice expressed its gratitude to the Dutch authorities for their assistance in the arrest and extradition of Dubnikov.
First identified in August 2018, Ryuk is a type of ransomware that, when run on a computer or network, encrypts files and attempts to delete all system backups. Ryuk can also affect hard drives, both physically connected to a computer and those connected remotely. Thousands of individuals and corporations around the world have fallen victim to the program. In October 2020, the FBI identified Ryuk as a growing cybersecurity threat to US hospitals and healthcare providers.
