French student accused by FBI of massive hacking arrested in Morocco

[Brother]

On January 9, a 22-year-old French citizen was sentenced to three years in prison for participating in the activities of the hacker group ShinyHunters.

Sebastien Raoult, better known as Sezyo Kaizen, was extradited to the United States in January 2023 after being arrested in Morocco in 2022. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud, extortion of large sums and other crimes. In addition, he is now required to pay compensation in the amount of $5 million.

According to the indictment brought by prosecutors in the Western District of Washington, Raul and two accomplices hacked more than 60 companies around the world. The criminals posted the stolen data on dark web sites such as RaidForums, EmpireMarket and Exploit. In some cases, they demanded a ransom for the removal of sensitive information.

In 2020 and 2021, ShinyHunters carried out a series of hacking attacks on large organizations, including clothing retailer Bonobos, photo app Pixlr, and Microsoft's GitHub account. The group also claimed to have data from 70 million AT&T accounts, although the company then denied the hack.

According to the US Department of Justice, Raul and his co-conspirators created fake websites, imitating the login pages of real companies, and sent phishing emails to employees. Once the victim entered their credentials, the hackers gained full access to their accounts. “Hundreds of millions of customer records” were stolen, resulting in losses totaling approximately $6 million.

“This is an extremely serious crime. We are talking about millions of dollars,” said federal judge Robert S. Lasnik during the sentencing.

Raoul's father told DataBreaches.net that the sentence included the time he had already served in Morocco and Seattle, and now the hacker has another 11 months left in prison.

During the court hearing, Raul said: “I am aware of my mistakes and want to leave this period of my life behind. No more break-ins. I don't want to disappoint my family again."