Cloned Boy
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This topic is the full version of Igor Litvak's interview for Andrey Loshak's film "Russian Hackers: The Beginning". Igor talked about the cases of Dmitry Smilyanets, Vladimir Drinkman and Roman Seleznev, about cooperation with the American investigation, about government hackers, the biggest mistakes of carders, changes in the world of cybercrime and much more.
Enjoy reading!
Contents:
First experience working with carders.
Loshak:
How did Russian carders first appear in your legal practice? Or hackers in general, cybercriminals?
Lawyer:
Well, I have been practicing criminal law for a very long time. Somewhere more than 10 years. I started out in the New Jersey State Attorney's Office, where I did my internship, and we worked on large-scale cases there that were related to fraud. At that time, it was related to the medical industry of that state. Well, I had a lot of experience in the criminal sphere.
And then, after I became a lawyer, got my license, left the prosecutor's office, and started working. My first job was in a serious Manhattan criminal firm, where I then got my internship. And this was especially related to federal courts, with big cases. And I kind of made a name for myself in this area, in this poor one, and people heard about me.
And I started getting hired by Russians who were involved in cybercrime-related criminal cases in America. My first case was a big one, if I'm not mistaken, namely one of the Russian carders, the big, famous ones, I think it was Smilyanets, if I'm not mistaken.
It was a long time ago, but I think it was Smilyanets. Well, and then, when I made a name for myself in this area, and after that, other people started hiring me, who were not only from Russia, but who came from all over the CIS, Ukraine, Belarus, wherever you want.
And for 5-6 years now I've been traveling all over America, representing them in these criminal cases, in big federal cases, not only those related to cybercrime, but also with drugs, money laundering, all sorts of financial fraud. So this is what I work for, and I really like it, and people know about me, they like the results, they like my work, and so this is what I do.
How has the world of cybercrime changed?
Loshak:
There are a lot of cybercriminals now, do you feel like the number is growing, the number of cases opened is minimal?
Lawyer:
You know, it has changed a little. In my opinion, what I see is that the world of cybercrime itself has changed a little, because at the beginning, well, at the beginning of the 2000s, at the beginning of the 50s, there were such big players, big whales, who, according to the Americans, brought the biggest losses. According to the Americans, most of them were arrested, they left this market, they no longer engage in cybercrime.
Therefore, now there are a lot of not just big people, but medium and small ones. And therefore, it is a little different than it was before, because you must understand that each person, in order to extradite, to start a federal case, this is a very expensive thing for the American state.
It's a lot of energy, a lot of work. Sometimes you have to wait for years for a person to leave the country where he lives, to be arrested. So it's like, it's all changed. Now, it seems to me, there are many more people who are doing this, but they are not as big as they used to be. So it's changed.
And it seems to me, for the secret service, for the FBI, it's even harder to catch them. And so to answer the question, yes, there are more of them, but the scale they are involved in, they are not as huge as they were in the 2000s, in the 2010s, it's like a smaller fish.
Loshak:
Well, that is, with 300 million of them already, they don't cause such damage?
Lawyer:
200 million, 200 million, now, maybe, somewhere there are people who, like, cause such damage to the USA, but we, like, they, like, are not on the forums, like, such big-big players, by and large there are not as many of them as there used to be.
About the terms of Smilyanets and Drinkman.
Loshak:
And after Smilyanets, you say, the clientele was attracted, because, well, his defense was successful, right?
Lawyer:
I think that his defense was successful, yes.
Loshak:
Why?
Lawyer:
Well, because we... It was a good term, there were about five years, considering that he was facing life imprisonment when he was arrested.
Loshak:
This is not a joke.
Lawyer:
This is not a joke, he was facing life imprisonment, and a serious one at that, and therefore the result that we got, I think, is a very good result, considering what could have been.
Loshak:
How are such results achieved with such charges?
Lawyer:
I can’t go into details, it would be a violation of legal confidentiality, so I can’t comment, sorry.
Loshak:
Well, tell us a little more about the tactics of cooperation with the investigation. Well, I’m just curious, Dima got 4, what do you mean, about 5?
Lawyer:
About 5.
Loshak:
And his accomplice Drinkman got 12, why?
Lawyer:
Look, Smelyanets, Dmitry Smelyanets and Vladimir Drinkman are both my clients, I represent them both, and so I can’t say why one got more and one got less. That would be a violation of my, so to speak, obligation to them. Well, I can just, if you want to talk about cooperation, like, like, vague, so to speak, names.
We can talk about this, how it works. But I can’t take any specific person and describe what he did or didn’t do.
About the arrest of Roman Seleznev and cooperation with the investigation in America.
Loshak:
Okay. Seleznev is also your client. We also can't discuss why he has such a long sentence.
Lawyer:
We can discuss Seleznev, because it is in public, there was a jury trial, then there was a verdict, which was public, there were a lot of journalists at this verdict, and therefore I can discuss it. With Roman, the situation was that he was arrested in the Maldives, and he was not just extradited, you could say, kidnapped.
In my opinion, that is how it was, he was kidnapped from the Maldives, because there was no extradition there, there was no agreement, nothing.
Loshak:
But they still had to somehow regulate this issue with the American authorities?
Lawyer:
There is a situation that we raised at that moment during the appeal, that the person was kidnapped and all that. And the Americans said that they agreed with some local police chief, some boss, who was aware that the secret service would arrest Roman, and then they put him on a plane and took him away.
The government in the Maldives did not know about this, according to the information that we have. Only some local policeman knew about it, and that's all. And so he was arrested, brought to America, and he fought in America for three years. And he fought for three years, and then he went to trial by jury. Which is very rare in cybercrimes.
In cybercrimes, people usually either accept guilt without cooperation, or go for cooperation. There are cases when people go to trial by jury, but it's rare. And in America, the law works in such a way that if a person decides to go to trial by jury, and if he loses it, you get the maximum.
And that's what happened. There was... Roman lost it. He had an American, very famous lawyer Dan Brown, who once defended Manning with WikiLeaks. You know, you once heard about this story. But they lost the jury trial, and on all counts. And after he lost this jury trial, Roman hired me, and I've been his lawyer since then.
Loshak:
Why did he go to the jury? Why didn't he refuse to make some kind of deal?
Lawyer:
I... I wasn't his lawyer at the time, so I can't say. Well, he probably explained his position to you somehow. I don't know why he went to the jury. Maybe they thought they would win. I don't know. You see, I wasn't there. It's hard for me to judge.
Loshak:
But ordinary people do things like that, why? Well, I mean, they tell you clearly, right, Timur? Well, let's cooperate, you'll tell us what we don't know.
Lawyer:
Not everyone cooperates, not everyone. Don't think that everyone cooperates, that's not true. First of all, they cooperate, I also understand, there are different types of cooperation. Some people think that admitting guilt and coming to court, saying that I am guilty, making a deal, like, in this way, without cooperation. Well, some people think that this is also cooperation. But this is not cooperation. It's just coming to court.
Let's say you have 10 articles as an indictment. The person does not want to fight. The person does not want to go to a jury trial. You can try to agree on one or two articles. Just admit guilt. See what kind of database the prosecutor's office has on your client. Negotiating is also a long job, but the point is that you can make a deal without cooperation. Because cooperation, in principle, is what the Americans want, cooperation implies cooperating.
So, what does that mean? To make new criminal cases, to make arrests, to hand over people, to sit on forums with an agent, for example, and to talk with other people whom the American authorities want to arrest. This is what cooperation means in the traditional sense. But it can be different.
Loshak:
It is possible to cooperate and not hand over people.
Lawyer:
It is possible to cooperate and not hand over people, absolutely. Absolutely. Cooperation can be very different, very different. And therefore the options are also very large, there are also many options, but it is not necessary to hand over, not necessarily then no.
Loshak:
It is clear why what logic Roman had, let's say that he did not go to.
Lawyer:
One of these numerous options will have to ask Roman why they did what they did again at that moment I was not his lawyer and therefore it is difficult for me to judge. I can say that when he lost the jury trial, he immediately fired his lawyer, an American one, and he hired me.
And we went, I went with him to the verdict, and when we were at the verdict, the judge said a lot of things, there is some kind of public information that after Roman lost the jury trial, and by the way, we talked about this right after the verdict, there was a big press release, there was some information that already when he lost the jury trial, he tried to do something there, I can’t go into details, what we tried to do. The only thing I can say is what the prosecutor and the judge himself said at the verdict.
This is public information, recorded, it can be easily found. And the judge, well, the prosecutor, and then the judge said that the cooperation that Roman tried to do. First of all, it was kind of ineffective, there was nothing serious there.
It was too late. Plus, what he tried to do, it was already three years after he fought. And so what we tried to do after we lost, after he lost the jury, in the opinion of the judge and in the opinion of the prosecutor's office, it was already too late. And not the type of cooperation that they would like to see.
That is, it is difficult to even call this cooperation there.
Will Seleznev be able to get out before the appointed time.
Loshak:
And what are his prospects? Do you think there are any prospects for Roman to get out earlier than 28-27 years old?
Lawyer:
Well, look, there are always options. By the way, we filed for Roman... Because he is sitting in North Carolina, in prison. We filed a special petition for Roman in federal court to release him temporarily to a hotel or send him home on the basis of covid. Because Roman is very sick.
He suffered in Morocco, there was a therapeutic act there. In fact, his health is not very good. And we hoped that against the backdrop of the coronavirus and everything else, they would let him go home. And then a couple of weeks ago...
Loshak:
Home, I mean somewhere in America?
Lawyer:
But we asked... No, we gave... We kind of asked for two things. We asked that he either be temporarily released to a hotel in America, or the second option, that he be simply released home. And, unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago we received a refusal. So we will fight, we will try further. We will use everything possible to get Roman home. And I know that I will do everything in my power.
And we also hope that his homeland, the Russian Federation, will also be able to help somehow.
Loshak:
I heard exactly the version that either he was counting on Roman, or the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs really tried to interfere with us and all this ended in nothing or ended badly?
Lawyer:
Well, look, in America there are three people who, I think, it’s no secret, but in my opinion, I think it’s no secret either, there are three people who the Russian, like, government wanted to come home. They are Viktor Bud, Konstantin Yaroshenko and Roman Seleznev. Whether it will happen or not, I don’t know. But we hope that sooner or later he will somehow come home.
I think it will be before the end of his term. At least, I hope, because I don’t think he will simply survive. It seems to me that with the health that he has, I don’t think he will survive 20 years in prison.
Loshak:
And what can you say about his conditions now?
Lawyer:
Well, the conditions are like a prison. But it is a prison, there is only no medical care. Despite the fact that he is in a prison with a hospital, it is still not the same. And he has a metal plate in his head that moves sometimes, it needs to be looked after. Prison cannot provide the kind of medical services that he needs.
And therefore, despite the fact that they somehow support him there, in my opinion it is not enough for him to live a normal life. It seems to me that he will not survive 20 years.
Loshak:
And how do you understand that Russia is joining in for Roman on an equal footing with, for example, Bout or Yaroshenko, that is, you took these three names?
Lawyer:
I will not say how I took this. These three names exist. Much has been written about them, and again, it is no secret that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian government wanted these three people to return home.
Loshak:
There were, accordingly, also statements, right?
Lawyer:
This was brought up, this was discussed. By the way, I don’t know if this is true or not. The Americans... The Americans... I don’t know, you may have heard, several Americans have been arrested in Russia in the last few years. There was Poe Willen, who was arrested for espionage, there are a couple of other Americans who are also supposedly sitting in Russia now. The Americans, the intelligence services, the government, they think, I’m not saying whether this is true or not,
but they think, in their opinion, that these people were arrested for only one reason, in order to exchange them for some people who are sitting in America. Again, Russia didn’t tell me this, this is just what I heard from the Americans. Well, that’s what the Americans think. So we’ll see what happens.
Loshak:
But tell us about some of your other famous clients, can you list any other famous carders?
Lawyer:
I don’t like to name names, so that my clients might be offended.
Loshak:
But some of the most high-profile ones?
Lawyer:
Well, like Gary Shalon, for example, very big. Levashov, Petya Levashov, Kirill Firsov. There are many of them. In principle, these are famous names that... People who are interested in who I represented, you can easily find it on the Internet.
Igor Litvak's prices.
Loshak:
You are an expensive lawyer. This person got into such a situation. Carder. They arrested another one somewhere in the Maldives. How much does he need to be able to hire you?
Lawyer:
It all depends on what we do. And it also depends on whether we go to a jury trial or not. He takes a deal with cooperation or without cooperation. There are many options there. Plus, if a person decides to go to a jury trial, it depends. This jury trial will last 3 days, and it will last 3 weeks. There are 2 witnesses or 45 witnesses. It all depends.
In general, these are the kind of cases that start with 50 thousand dollars and go up to a million.
Loshak:
It depends on what?
Lawyer:
How much work? What is the person facing? Is he facing 5 years or is he facing 60 years? What is the evidence base against him that the lawyer should review? Then the person tells me, Igor, we are going to a jury trial. Okay, we are going to a jury trial, that is a different situation. Or he tells me, Igor, I just accept a deal without cooperation, just make me the best deal possible. I will not cooperate, I will serve my time, and go home.
That is a different story. So it all depends. It all depends. But, in principle, the simplest, like, minor federal cases, again, start with 50 thousand dollars, and they can go up to a million.
How do you feel about the arrest of carders by American special services on the territory of other countries?
Loshak:
What is your general attitude towards the United States’ practice of arresting Russian carders, especially Russian-speaking ones, on the territory of other countries?
Lawyer:
Well, how can I put it? It’s a very difficult question. There’s no simple answer to it. In general, of course, when they arrest my compatriots, you could say, on the one hand, I’m not very happy about it. Well, the system is the system. I can’t change it. And American law works like that almost all over the world.
And that’s why it won’t stop, they’ll continue to arrest them. And that’s why I can’t really say whether I have a good or bad attitude. Well, it is what it is.
Loshak:
Well, and what happened to your client Seleznev, how do you assess it?
Lawyer:
Horrible. Horrible. It’s not just him. I have... It’s not the only such case. What happened to Roman is, of course, very horrible, it’s unfair. A person without a trial, they just grabbed him, put him on a plane and took him away. Well, it's like some kind of wild west, you know. And I had other cases, I recently told you about it, gave another interview, I had a client, Evgeny Bykov.
Also famous, like a very high-profile case.
Loshak:
Also a carder?
Lawyer:
Not a carder, no, no, he was accused of creating fentanyl, it was some kind of very strong drug, and that he was laundering money. He was arrested in the Baltics. He spent 8 months in prison there, in isolation, by the way. Then they brought him to America. And he sat here for about a year and a half. And the most interesting thing is that when they brought him here, he was facing 40 years.
And the article that was brought against him was a minimum term of 10. He was facing 40. And when I went to the prosecutor's office to meet with them, I received this entire database from them. And I met with the chief prosecutor there, there was one woman, a girl. And she told me something interesting at the time. She said to me, Igor, here I am giving you a database. You understand that your client is guilty.
If he goes to a jury trial, we will prove his guilt in 5 minutes. So don't even try, don't try, there is no chance. I was like, okay, good, but the worst thing is that when I received this database and checked it, looked at it, this wiretap and everything else, there was nothing on him, that is, zero.
That is, a person, again this is in my opinion, an innocent person was arrested, he spent 8 months in prison in Estonia, then he spent a year and a half here, and only when I looked at the database, returned to the prosecutor's office and told them, guys, there is nothing here on my client, and we are going to a jury trial, so I said, we are going to a jury trial, only then they told me, okay, okay, Igor, fine, we went too far here. And he was facing 40 years, 40 years, think about it.
We finally, when I told them that there was nothing there, they withdrew this article, and in the end, now in January, he went home. That is, an innocent person was seized and tortured for more than 2 years. Do you understand? And I'm not saying that they did it on purpose, the prosecutor's office. There was some kind of bureaucracy, they made a mistake, something happened there. Well, such situations happen, such situations happen.
And that's why, when I see something like that, of course, I don't like it. I'll tell you another case, it was a very high-profile case. Fawzi Jabba. I don't know if anyone has ever heard of such a person. He has nothing to do with Russia. But that was also a very famous case. About five years ago, they arrested a man in Prague and arrested him in order to exile him to the United States.
But the most interesting thing is, why was he arrested? He was arrested because, according to the prosecutor's office, he was trying to organize Russian surface-to-air missiles, Strela. He was trying to organize them so that they would be sold to FARC. There is one in Colombia, America, where is America? A man in one country is trying to send weapons to a third country.
Not through America, you understand, but directly. And what does America have to do with it? And when I spoke with agents and prosecutors, at the time this case was going on, I tried to give them this example. I tell him, guys, imagine this situation. Boeing sells, let's say, weapons to Israel. Let's say tomorrow the Duma passes a law that no one can sell weapons to Israel.
And if the CEO of Boeing goes, say, to Spain on vacation, or to Moldova, or to some country that has a tradition of an agreement with Russia. So now this CEO, this president of Boeing can be extradited to Russia? I don’t understand. He sold weapons to Israel. What does that have to do with it? That is, this is kind of an example, you understand?
And for me, this was a very interesting case, because… why? Because it shows how much the jurisdiction of American law has expanded. America has an extradition treaty with 107 countries. Think about it. 107 countries in the world. And therefore, if a person has a criminal case in America, this is, of course, a big problem for him, and this shows that…
Loshak:
Most of the countries are closed to him.
Lawyer:
Most of the world is closed to him. And plus, the worst thing is that you can’t do anything bad in America. You might have just sent, I don’t know, a missile to Colombia and suddenly, for no apparent reason, you have a criminal case in the States where you could get life in prison, I don’t think that’s fair.
The biggest mistakes carders make.
Loshak:
What mistakes do carders usually make that they punish their own clients for?
Lawyer:
Lots of mistakes. I think the biggest mistake is having a work laptop that is also your personal laptop. There should be two. If a person has already decided to engage in carding, cybercrime, his work laptop, his personal laptop, there should be two different worlds. They can never intersect.
Plus, I don’t know why, but very often the guys who go out take these laptops with them, I don’t know why.
Loshak:
Well, they probably want to work some more.
Lawyer:
Guys, if you go out, we always leave our work laptop at home. And also, it seems to me, one of the most important reasons... In general, in the world of cybercrime, this idea of forums, where they gather and they communicate, it was, like, at the beginning of all this, it was central for these people.
And it seems to me that if people want to continue in this practice, they need to get away from it. And I am not only the first one who talks about this, I have heard other people who have talked about this, that forums are such a thing that gives a lot of loopholes. And therefore, plus people relax, people go to forums, spend 5-10 years there, they relax, they talk to hundreds of people there, and suddenly one of them could be a secret service agent or some kind of cooperator.
Therefore, it seems to me, these are the most important reasons - people relax, people do not keep security, they use their Laptabs, computers for this and for that, and over time, a portrait is built on them by the American special services, and when they leave, they are arrested.
Loshak:
You read the case materials, how do they de-anonymize them, how do they track them?
Lawyer:
That's all, there is no single way. Each criminal case is a unique case. That's why I'll even tell you that sometimes, when you receive a case, it's classified. How exactly, for example, Roman, how the secret service found out that Roman was in the Maldives, no one knows about it to this day. There are some rumors, but this was not in the case.
That's why sometimes, if the prosecutor's office, it's not always possible, especially if we go to a jury trial, there are certain rules, we have to get the entire database, but sometimes, if the prosecutor's office manages to do this, they may not even tell you how your client was found.
Loshak:
That is, this is what America considers the whole world to be its area of interest.
Lawyer:
Yes, absolutely.
Loshak:
This is what ruins our carders, yes, who.
Lawyer:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Loshak:
Those who think that, well, there is no extradition treaty here.
Lawyer:
So. Oh, no-no-no, forget it, forget it, forget it. The fact that there is no extradition treaty means nothing. First of all, extradition is only one way, and a person can be transported to the States. There are private contracts, deals there, there are secret services with some country that have agreed, let them send him away, put him on a plane. So don’t fall for it, as if this is an opinion that if there is no tradition, then everything is fine.
This is absolutely not true.
Loshak:
Now, this is probably not a question for you, more of a comment, a generation of these hackers has appeared, like the guys from Evil Corp, who do not leave Russia.
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes. There are some, they go on vacation to Sochi. They live there, they really like it there, well, it’s their decision.
Loshak:
Otherwise, most likely, nothing good awaits them. Have you worked closely with Kaznacheyev?
Lawyer:
The one who was arrested in Germany?
Loshak:
Yes, or the DJ.
Lawyer:
Yes, the DJ. I didn't work with him. I'm not his lawyer, but I've heard about him. The only thing I know is that he was released on bail. And now he's waiting to testify in the US.
About cooperation with the investigation.
Loshak:
It's just that I also heard that the person is not guilty at all. Can you tell us anything about this project? Well, as Bukh explained to us, what exists when cooperation, it's like people are offered to do a certain project in cooperation with the authorities, with American law enforcement agencies.
Lawyer:
Look. They won't bring the project to the defendant. Themselves. Because they don't know if he's going to cooperate. What if he says no, and then goes and tells his friends about the project. Therefore, if a person wants to cooperate, the defendant himself must bring the project to them. And not the other way around. And that's why projects are different again. In general, what is cooperation?
The point of cooperation is to get a good discount on the verdict. But in order to get it, you definitely need to do things for them. You need to get a document called 5K1. In order to get this document, you need to do what's called substantial assistance for them, that is, substantial assistance. What substantial assistance is, they decide, not you. That is, a person can cooperate for 3 years, well, in theory, and then go to the verdict, and they will say, well, you know, sorry, it wasn't substantial assistance, because they decide, they are the defendant themselves.
And there are certain things that the prosecutor's office looks at, and if these things were done, they are almost guaranteed to count them as Substantial Assistance. What is that? It is making indentured servitudes against other people. What is an indentured servitude? It is an indictment with numerical articles, a grand jury votes for it, then an arrest warrant is issued based on this document, and then extradition.
But in order for this indentured servitude to be voted for, the prosecutor's office must present some information to this grand jury. It takes this information from the cooperator. He cooperates, maybe, for a year, two, three. They collect some information there, then the prosecutor goes to the grand jury with the defendant, he gives some testimony, then an indentured servitude is made.
That is one way. Another way is when an arrest is made for the sake of a person, for the sake of his information. That is a very big thing. An arrest, for them, an arrest is just a thrill. For the prosecutor's office, they will give a big discount for this. Another thing they really like is when you combine a nickname with a real name.
Because I told you this before, the FBI secret service has a lot of nicknames. A bunch of nicknames, but they don't know, it's just a nickname. Where is he? What is he? What country is he in? What kind of person? They don't have this information.
Loshak:
What we say on Lazdianon.
Lawyer:
Yes. And for them, combining a nickname with a real name, for the prosecutor's office, for the secret service, this is also a very, like, big thing. And that's why they look at such things. But again, you can get 5K, this document, on the basis of which they give a kind of discount, not only on this basis. You can do other things for them. You can bring your working laptap, not rat anyone out.
I just brought the laptap, gave them the laptap, they found it there, told them the password, they dug around, found everything they needed. Cooperation too. That's why it's very different, you know? There's no such thing as one rule. Each criminal case is unique. In fact, it is unique. And that's why the approach to each criminal case is also unique.
Why do some clients refuse to cooperate with the investigation?
Loshak:
Why do some of your clients refuse to cooperate? That is, what are their motives?
Lawyer:
I can't say that. Everyone has their own reason. That is, some people, maybe they are innocent. Others, maybe they just don't want to give up their own. That is, there are many reasons.
Loshak:
Well, that is, there is such a thing as not giving up your own.
Lawyer:
Well, of course, I think, not only in cyber, I think, in any area. People are not very willing to give up their own.
Loshak:
Are there people who are not ready even under threat of not calling?
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes, there are people who take risks, go to jury trial. They take risks, they win, they go home, they lose, they go to jail. Although in America you can sometimes cooperate after the verdict. It's called Rule 35, so sometimes people say, you know what, let's take a risk, let's go to jury trial, if we lose, if everything ends badly, then we can try to cooperate after the jury trial.
So again, there is no single answer, it seems to me that each person has their own reasons, which are difficult for me to say, impossible.
Loshak:
And why do you think some people adhere to this rule of theirs, I don't know?
Lawyer:
These are their personal reasons, no one ever tells me about this.
Loshak:
Well, what is your personal point of view?
Lawyer:
I don't know, I don't know, it's hard to say. I don't think there is one rule for everyone. It seems to me that for each person it is such a personal decision, which is based on so many different factors that I can’t even try to define them now, it’s impossible.
Loshak:
Well, yes, there is such a tradition in Russian culture, and I don’t think many Western cultures have this, that you snitch, cooperate with the police,
Advokat:
It seems to me that this is a myth. It seems to me that when a person is arrested and he understands that he is facing 25 years, all this culture flies out the window, and he starts thinking to himself. Again, cooperation is not the only way to fight off a criminal case. And again, this is not the only way.
There are other ways to fight it off, even if the person is guilty. That's why I always tell people when I have the opportunity, if you've been arrested, don't talk to the police right away. Don't start cooperating right away. Wait, calm down, you have plenty of time.
Call a lawyer who handles these cases, talk to him, explain, explain to him what you did, together you develop a strategy for how to deal with this case, and that's why it seems to me that what you said about such a culture is a myth, I know about it, they say about it, but in reality, it seems to me that it doesn't work very well.
Loshak:
Well, it's just that someone, as you say yourself, doesn't want to turn in. Or are there some other reasons?
Lawyer:
You see, when a client says, I don't want to turn in, he doesn't say why he doesn't want to turn in. He just says, I'm going to fight. And that's it, we fight. It's not like the client tells me, I'm guilty, but you're defending me anyway. The client usually says, I'm not guilty. That's it, we look at the database, we look at what's there, and we hold hearings, we hold sessions and we fight at full speed.
Why does the Russian Foreign Ministry stand up for some people, but not for others?
Loshak:
Why does the Russian Foreign Ministry stand up for some people, but not for others?
Lawyer:
Good question. You know, I also sometimes noticed that they seem to show more interest in some people than in others. Why, I don't know. Maybe because the person doesn't ask. If you don't ask, no one will help you by force.
In general, I want to tell you that the Foreign Ministry, they help, they are great in this sense, I have a lot of clients from Russia, not only on cyborgs, on various, various, various cases, and if you turn to them, ask for help, they go, they observe, they come to prison, they seem to solve some problems, solve these everyday problems and everything else, so in this sense they are great.
Have you seen any evidence of cooperation between carders and the Russian authorities?
Loshak:
Have you seen any evidence of cooperation between Russian carders and the state?
Lawyer:
I haven't had anything like that, so that a client would tell me directly, let's say I worked for a Russian special service. I had suspicions, you hear something, you see something in a database. I had suspicions, but no one would tell me that directly.
Loshak:
What kind of suspicions, without names? Can you tell me what it indicated?
Lawyer:
It indicated, well, this is like evidence that was collected by American intelligence agencies, there are correspondences, there, if people, for example, studied at a military school, there is something like that, or at school, there is the FSB, well, such things, you hear, but again, so that the client would tell me directly, like I work for the FSB or the Main Directorate, I have never had anything like that.
Loshak:
Do you think this cooperation exists in reality? I think... Cooperation between these so-called criminal hackers, these black hat hackers and specialists.
Lawyer:
I think so. I think so. I have had personal clients of mine who told me that I was involved in this, I have never had anything like that. But I have spoken to other people. In this sphere, people know me, I communicate with people who have already returned, and there are rumors, rumors, again, I don’t know how true it is, but there are rumors, and by the way, the Americans are also 100% sure of this, that these carders are supported by Russian special services, but I don’t have such information directly.
About Vladislav Khorokhorin (BadB).
Loshak:
Did you work with Khorokhorin?
Lawyer:
BadB?
Loshak:
Yes.
Lawyer:
I was not his lawyer, but I am on good terms with him.
Loshak:
Just talked?
Lawyer:
We still talk, yes. But I was not his lawyer.
Reference:
Vladislav Khorokhorin is a former carder and international credit card trader who was convicted of wire fraud and served a seven-year prison sentence in the United States.
About Vladimir Drinkman.
Loshak:
Can you tell us about Volodya Drinkman? Just as a client? Well, maybe without the details of the case, in general, what kind of person is he? How does he stand out from many others who come from the work of Russian carders?
Lawyer:
Well, first of all, he is very talented in the IT field. A lot of people who are called carders are not actually hackers. They may have had articles on cybercrime with credit cards, but traditionally a hacker is a person who penetrates some closed network. And Vladimir Drinkman was very talented in this. And he is considered, probably, one of the best in the world.
At least, at the time when he was arrested, he was probably one of the best in the world who did this. One of the best, top people, who understood this better than anyone. So he is a very smart guy. By the way, from my area. I am from Vorkuta, and he is from Syktyvkar. So we didn't live that far from each other. True, I came to America in '93, and he a little later.
Loshak:
And in different ways.
Lawyer:
In different ways, yes. Yes, well, he is a very talented guy, a very smart guy, and I hope that he will soon be released and will be able to rebuild his life. He has a daughter living in America, he has a wife here now.
Loshak:
For example, does he have a chance to get an offer from an American company? Or will he be extradited?
Lawyer:
No, no, look. Anyone can get an offer. The question is, if a person can legally stay in America. That is a slightly different situation. Since he has a daughter here, maybe he will be able to stay on this basis. Let's see when he gets out. So let's see what happens.
Loshak:
And how did they manage to drag his child?
Lawyer:
I don't know. It was many years ago. They came here before I started working with him. He was already here, yes. How is he holding up? He is holding up. He has less than two years left. In my opinion, if I'm not mistaken, he is getting out in December 22, I think. So, by the way, we are now waiting for a decision on him. We are too. I filed a similar petition, which I filed for Roman.
We filed a similar petition for Vladimir Drinkman in federal court in New Jersey. We are now waiting for the decision, which should appear any day now. And if he is released, it will, of course, be a big victory too. And we will see what happens next.
The verdict of Roman Seleznev.
Loshak:
Regarding Roman. You started working with him at the time of the verdict, right? Before the verdict. How did he take the verdict? Tell us about some emotional things, this is, well, that is...
Lawyer:
Well, I think the verdict, of course, is very terrible, 27 years, this is one of the longest, if not the longest sentence that someone has ever received for a cybercrime. And, of course, I didn’t really like what the judge said about the verdict, how he would have yelled at him, like, look, you’re guilty, you should have confessed, you didn’t confess.
Well, in general, he was given, of course, a terrible sentence, 27 years. This is true for any person, not just Roman. How can one react to such a sentence? It seems to me that any person, of course, would perceive it very badly.
Loshak:
Can you tell us about the meeting with him closest to the announcement of the verdict? What did he say, how did he behave?
Lawyer:
He was upset, and we hope that we will be able to get him out of there much sooner than 27 years later.
Loshak:
Does his father help him?
Lawyer:
Help in what sense? That is, his father is there, he is here, the father’s capabilities are limited in a sense. I believe that he does everything he can do for Roman. I don’t think they were scheduled for Roman, if I’m not mistaken.
And I don’t know exactly what is going on there, so it’s hard for me to say.
Loshak:
But she’s not here.
Lawyer:
He had one wife, who, I think, later came to the States, if I'm not mistaken. But when Roman was arrested, he had another girlfriend, who was with him in the Maldives. And, as I understand it, he still communicates with her, but I can't say for sure.
Loshak:
And the children?
Lawyer:
Roman... This girl had a daughter, I think, from a previous relationship. She was not Roman's biological daughter. Roman, by the way, adopted her and looked after her. And I know that this girl misses Roman very, very much. At least that's what I heard.
About the prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States.
Loshak:
Are the American authorities able to exchange the full number? What is Russia like in general, what is the level of this cooperation between the special services and the states?
Lawyer:
You know, over the past 20 years, I do not know of a single carder who has been exchanged. And therefore, if this happens in the future, I do not know. We'll see. And the last exchange that took place between Russia and America was the famous story with Anna Chapman, 10 years ago. After that, I have not heard of any exchanges and before that either, especially with carders.
So let's see what happens in the future. As I said before, the Americans are 99% sure that there will be an exchange. They are sure that the Americans who were arrested in Russia were arrested only for this. Whether they are right or not, time will tell.
Reference:
At the time of posting this interview on the forum, in practice there have already been 2 prisoner exchanges between Russia and the United States.
An interesting case from work.
Loshak:
A classic idiotic question. Tell us some interesting cases from your practice related to Russian carders. But I know that this is a question that will never be answered.
Lawyer:
I can tell you an interesting case. It is not related to a carder, it is related to drugs. Here is a kind of funny and at the same time sad story. I had one client, his name was Giovanni Guzman. And he was arrested in Manhattan, according to the prosecutor's office, he had 10 kilograms of cocaine. And during the same period, El Chapo Guzman was arrested in Mexico.
Have you heard? That famous drug lord who was extradited to New York.
Loshak:
Whom some Hollywood star was filming.
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes. And they have the same last name. Guzman, Guzman. And the thing is that, despite the fact that they have different courts, they are, in fact, kind of next to each other. But not with me. When I went into my court, when I said that my client was Guzman, everyone stood up and looked at me like that. Like, can you imagine Guzman, the El Chapos of Mexico? I was like, no, guys, a little different, smaller. And for some reason the story there is deplorable. The thing is, we fought for a long time to get him released on bail.
They didn't want to release him on bail, in the end we achieved it, there was a large bail, they released him, they put him on his leg, and like a bracelet or like a GPS bracelet, somewhere around six months pass, one day I get a text message from some kind of FBI agent, I'm just looking and there are like bushes, just bushes, earth, bushes and in the bushes lies a GPS, I don't understand what this is, the agent tells me that your client removed the GPS and ran away.
He simply removed the GPS, threw it away and disappeared. And they searched for him for two years. Two weeks ago they found his body in Mexico. So, on the one hand, such an interesting story, but also like a cautionary tale, that guys, don't mess with drugs.
"There are a lot of carders, but few are caught."
Loshak:
About Russian carders. In general, can you say their approximate number? How many were there? 10, 20, 30? Do I have clients? Exactly, risk-taking carders.
Lawyer:
Well, I mean, not only from Russia, like, from the CIS.
Loshak:
Yes, from the CIS, well, let's put it that way.
Lawyer:
And I... And these are not only those who were my direct clients, but these are clients with whom I worked as part of a team of lawyers, well, somewhere, probably 20-25, like that.
Loshak:
So there really are a lot of them?
Lawyer:
There are a lot of them, but they catch a drop in the ocean, I'm serious. There are very, very many of them, and they arrest very few. Therefore, the chances that you will be arrested are slim. They are very slim, because tens of thousands of people who are sort of involved in these cases, they arrest maybe five a year.
How have cybercrimes changed.
Loshak:
And how do you see crimes changing now, cybercrimes?
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes. You know...
Loshak:
Evolution. From what to what?
Lawyer:
Yes, it was carding, a very big topic was carding, when people would sort of break into different stores, businesses, download these credit cards, and then print credit cards in their basement somewhere or in the garage, put that information on this card code, then go to ATMs and pull out cash.
This is what happened in the 2000s, it was a very big topic. Then in the 2010s it started to change a little. Already in the 2010s we see more bots, ransomware. Especially in the last 5 years, ransomware has been a very, very big topic, which just pisses off the Americans to the last.
Loshak:
Computer extortion.
Lawyer:
Yes, it's when they put some malware or some program on your computer that blocks everything, you can't, like, enter it. And they tell you, look, send me, let's say, 10 bitcoins or 20 bitcoins, and I'll give you a way to open it all later. And now there's like an epidemic in America, especially in the last few years, hospitals are suffering greatly from this, schools, small businesses.
So it's changing. Now a new topic, a very new topic - MathBud. I don't know if you've heard about it or not, but now one guy, by the way, my former client, then he ran out of money, he left me, they gave him a free government lawyer. But now he's, he's in Brooklyn in a pretrial detention center, and at the end, now at the end of April, a jury trial is starting, and he's accused of creating MathBud.
Metbat is a new term that no one has used before, but Metbat is a browser, that is, according to the prosecutor's office, what was the point of this whole idea. Look, you know Facebook, right? When you open Facebook, you watch some video about cats, right? The video is, say, one minute long.
And in the middle of the video, an ad is turned on for 15 seconds. Well, you know, right? You've all seen it. And Facebook, it works with companies, advertisers, who do all this. And Facebook gets money, there's something called 1,000 views.
For every 1,000 views, they get a certain amount of money. But how are these views determined? There's a browser. When a person goes to the browser, goes to Facebook, watches this video, this browser sends a report to Facebook so that there is a view and everything else. So, Madbot is a browser that, according to the prosecutor's office, was created to sort of emulate views.
What does that mean? You remember what "emulates," right? Let's say a person is sitting on a computer just on the side, reading the New York Times, and in the background, this madbot turns on, this browser that he doesn't even see, he goes to Facebook or other sort of advertising sites, turns on
this ad, no one looks.
Loshak:
But advertisers are happy and think they're watching.
Lawyer:
Advertisers are happy and think they're watching. In fact, no one is watching. And advertisers are losing a lot of money. And now, at the end of April, Alexander Zhukov will have a jury trial, which he's going to, and we, I and people who are interested in this, will follow this jury trial, and it will, of course, be interesting to see how it ends.
Loshak:
Was he detained in Bulgaria?
Lawyer:
In Bulgaria, yes, yes, yes, it was him. This is him in Bulgaria.
Loshak:
This is something he came up with himself, something completely new, right?
Lawyer:
I'm not saying he's guilty or innocent.
Loshak:
What do you mean, an interesting thing according to the American prosecutor's office?
Lawyer:
The prosecutor's office's versions are what they claim. Time will tell what will be proven in a jury trial.
Loshak:
Interesting, to be honest, I didn't contact this bug because we were already starting to drown in the amount of his material, yes, I thought that he was ready to talk on the phone, in my opinion, but why would he need to ask him without a clue, off the record, the day before a jury trial. What can he get? Usually people are afraid before a jury, before a trial...
Lawyer:
Maybe someone will show up, I don't know. He doesn't tell me that. Again, I represented him, he ran out of money. He now has his own free state lawyer, and he works with him.
Loshak:
That is, things are difficult for him now, the situation is difficult, right?
Lawyer:
Yes, yes. If he loses this jury trial, if he loses it...
Loshak:
He's in trouble.
Lawyer:
He's facing a serious sentence.
Loshak:
How much do they want?
Lawyer:
I don't know, but he could get up to 20.
Enjoy reading!
Contents:
- First experience with carders
- How the World of Cybercrime Has Changed
- About the deadlines for Smiljanc and Drinkman
- On the arrest of Roman Seleznev and cooperation with the investigation in America
- Will Seleznev be able to leave before the appointed time?
- Igor Litvak's prices
- How do you feel about the arrest of carders by American special services on the territory of other countries?
- The biggest mistakes carders make
- About cooperation with the investigation
- Why Some Clients Refuse to Cooperate with Investigations
- Why does the Russian Foreign Ministry stand up for some people and not for others?
- Have you seen any evidence of carders cooperating with Russian authorities?
- About Vladislav Khorokhorin (BadB)
- About Vladimir Drinkman
- The verdict of Roman Seleznev
- On the exchange of prisoners between Russia and the USA
- An interesting case from work
- "There are a lot of carders, but they catch little"
- How Cybercrime Has Changed
First experience working with carders.
Loshak:
How did Russian carders first appear in your legal practice? Or hackers in general, cybercriminals?
Lawyer:
Well, I have been practicing criminal law for a very long time. Somewhere more than 10 years. I started out in the New Jersey State Attorney's Office, where I did my internship, and we worked on large-scale cases there that were related to fraud. At that time, it was related to the medical industry of that state. Well, I had a lot of experience in the criminal sphere.
And then, after I became a lawyer, got my license, left the prosecutor's office, and started working. My first job was in a serious Manhattan criminal firm, where I then got my internship. And this was especially related to federal courts, with big cases. And I kind of made a name for myself in this area, in this poor one, and people heard about me.
And I started getting hired by Russians who were involved in cybercrime-related criminal cases in America. My first case was a big one, if I'm not mistaken, namely one of the Russian carders, the big, famous ones, I think it was Smilyanets, if I'm not mistaken.
It was a long time ago, but I think it was Smilyanets. Well, and then, when I made a name for myself in this area, and after that, other people started hiring me, who were not only from Russia, but who came from all over the CIS, Ukraine, Belarus, wherever you want.
And for 5-6 years now I've been traveling all over America, representing them in these criminal cases, in big federal cases, not only those related to cybercrime, but also with drugs, money laundering, all sorts of financial fraud. So this is what I work for, and I really like it, and people know about me, they like the results, they like my work, and so this is what I do.
How has the world of cybercrime changed?
Loshak:
There are a lot of cybercriminals now, do you feel like the number is growing, the number of cases opened is minimal?
Lawyer:
You know, it has changed a little. In my opinion, what I see is that the world of cybercrime itself has changed a little, because at the beginning, well, at the beginning of the 2000s, at the beginning of the 50s, there were such big players, big whales, who, according to the Americans, brought the biggest losses. According to the Americans, most of them were arrested, they left this market, they no longer engage in cybercrime.
Therefore, now there are a lot of not just big people, but medium and small ones. And therefore, it is a little different than it was before, because you must understand that each person, in order to extradite, to start a federal case, this is a very expensive thing for the American state.
It's a lot of energy, a lot of work. Sometimes you have to wait for years for a person to leave the country where he lives, to be arrested. So it's like, it's all changed. Now, it seems to me, there are many more people who are doing this, but they are not as big as they used to be. So it's changed.
And it seems to me, for the secret service, for the FBI, it's even harder to catch them. And so to answer the question, yes, there are more of them, but the scale they are involved in, they are not as huge as they were in the 2000s, in the 2010s, it's like a smaller fish.
Loshak:
Well, that is, with 300 million of them already, they don't cause such damage?
Lawyer:
200 million, 200 million, now, maybe, somewhere there are people who, like, cause such damage to the USA, but we, like, they, like, are not on the forums, like, such big-big players, by and large there are not as many of them as there used to be.
About the terms of Smilyanets and Drinkman.
Loshak:
And after Smilyanets, you say, the clientele was attracted, because, well, his defense was successful, right?
Lawyer:
I think that his defense was successful, yes.
Loshak:
Why?
Lawyer:
Well, because we... It was a good term, there were about five years, considering that he was facing life imprisonment when he was arrested.
Loshak:
This is not a joke.
Lawyer:
This is not a joke, he was facing life imprisonment, and a serious one at that, and therefore the result that we got, I think, is a very good result, considering what could have been.
Loshak:
How are such results achieved with such charges?
Lawyer:
I can’t go into details, it would be a violation of legal confidentiality, so I can’t comment, sorry.
Loshak:
Well, tell us a little more about the tactics of cooperation with the investigation. Well, I’m just curious, Dima got 4, what do you mean, about 5?
Lawyer:
About 5.
Loshak:
And his accomplice Drinkman got 12, why?
Lawyer:
Look, Smelyanets, Dmitry Smelyanets and Vladimir Drinkman are both my clients, I represent them both, and so I can’t say why one got more and one got less. That would be a violation of my, so to speak, obligation to them. Well, I can just, if you want to talk about cooperation, like, like, vague, so to speak, names.
We can talk about this, how it works. But I can’t take any specific person and describe what he did or didn’t do.
About the arrest of Roman Seleznev and cooperation with the investigation in America.
Loshak:
Okay. Seleznev is also your client. We also can't discuss why he has such a long sentence.
Lawyer:
We can discuss Seleznev, because it is in public, there was a jury trial, then there was a verdict, which was public, there were a lot of journalists at this verdict, and therefore I can discuss it. With Roman, the situation was that he was arrested in the Maldives, and he was not just extradited, you could say, kidnapped.
In my opinion, that is how it was, he was kidnapped from the Maldives, because there was no extradition there, there was no agreement, nothing.
Loshak:
But they still had to somehow regulate this issue with the American authorities?
Lawyer:
There is a situation that we raised at that moment during the appeal, that the person was kidnapped and all that. And the Americans said that they agreed with some local police chief, some boss, who was aware that the secret service would arrest Roman, and then they put him on a plane and took him away.
The government in the Maldives did not know about this, according to the information that we have. Only some local policeman knew about it, and that's all. And so he was arrested, brought to America, and he fought in America for three years. And he fought for three years, and then he went to trial by jury. Which is very rare in cybercrimes.
In cybercrimes, people usually either accept guilt without cooperation, or go for cooperation. There are cases when people go to trial by jury, but it's rare. And in America, the law works in such a way that if a person decides to go to trial by jury, and if he loses it, you get the maximum.
And that's what happened. There was... Roman lost it. He had an American, very famous lawyer Dan Brown, who once defended Manning with WikiLeaks. You know, you once heard about this story. But they lost the jury trial, and on all counts. And after he lost this jury trial, Roman hired me, and I've been his lawyer since then.
Loshak:
Why did he go to the jury? Why didn't he refuse to make some kind of deal?
Lawyer:
I... I wasn't his lawyer at the time, so I can't say. Well, he probably explained his position to you somehow. I don't know why he went to the jury. Maybe they thought they would win. I don't know. You see, I wasn't there. It's hard for me to judge.
Loshak:
But ordinary people do things like that, why? Well, I mean, they tell you clearly, right, Timur? Well, let's cooperate, you'll tell us what we don't know.
Lawyer:
Not everyone cooperates, not everyone. Don't think that everyone cooperates, that's not true. First of all, they cooperate, I also understand, there are different types of cooperation. Some people think that admitting guilt and coming to court, saying that I am guilty, making a deal, like, in this way, without cooperation. Well, some people think that this is also cooperation. But this is not cooperation. It's just coming to court.
Let's say you have 10 articles as an indictment. The person does not want to fight. The person does not want to go to a jury trial. You can try to agree on one or two articles. Just admit guilt. See what kind of database the prosecutor's office has on your client. Negotiating is also a long job, but the point is that you can make a deal without cooperation. Because cooperation, in principle, is what the Americans want, cooperation implies cooperating.
So, what does that mean? To make new criminal cases, to make arrests, to hand over people, to sit on forums with an agent, for example, and to talk with other people whom the American authorities want to arrest. This is what cooperation means in the traditional sense. But it can be different.
Loshak:
It is possible to cooperate and not hand over people.
Lawyer:
It is possible to cooperate and not hand over people, absolutely. Absolutely. Cooperation can be very different, very different. And therefore the options are also very large, there are also many options, but it is not necessary to hand over, not necessarily then no.
Loshak:
It is clear why what logic Roman had, let's say that he did not go to.
Lawyer:
One of these numerous options will have to ask Roman why they did what they did again at that moment I was not his lawyer and therefore it is difficult for me to judge. I can say that when he lost the jury trial, he immediately fired his lawyer, an American one, and he hired me.
And we went, I went with him to the verdict, and when we were at the verdict, the judge said a lot of things, there is some kind of public information that after Roman lost the jury trial, and by the way, we talked about this right after the verdict, there was a big press release, there was some information that already when he lost the jury trial, he tried to do something there, I can’t go into details, what we tried to do. The only thing I can say is what the prosecutor and the judge himself said at the verdict.
This is public information, recorded, it can be easily found. And the judge, well, the prosecutor, and then the judge said that the cooperation that Roman tried to do. First of all, it was kind of ineffective, there was nothing serious there.
It was too late. Plus, what he tried to do, it was already three years after he fought. And so what we tried to do after we lost, after he lost the jury, in the opinion of the judge and in the opinion of the prosecutor's office, it was already too late. And not the type of cooperation that they would like to see.
That is, it is difficult to even call this cooperation there.
Will Seleznev be able to get out before the appointed time.
Loshak:
And what are his prospects? Do you think there are any prospects for Roman to get out earlier than 28-27 years old?
Lawyer:
Well, look, there are always options. By the way, we filed for Roman... Because he is sitting in North Carolina, in prison. We filed a special petition for Roman in federal court to release him temporarily to a hotel or send him home on the basis of covid. Because Roman is very sick.
He suffered in Morocco, there was a therapeutic act there. In fact, his health is not very good. And we hoped that against the backdrop of the coronavirus and everything else, they would let him go home. And then a couple of weeks ago...
Loshak:
Home, I mean somewhere in America?
Lawyer:
But we asked... No, we gave... We kind of asked for two things. We asked that he either be temporarily released to a hotel in America, or the second option, that he be simply released home. And, unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago we received a refusal. So we will fight, we will try further. We will use everything possible to get Roman home. And I know that I will do everything in my power.
And we also hope that his homeland, the Russian Federation, will also be able to help somehow.
Loshak:
I heard exactly the version that either he was counting on Roman, or the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs really tried to interfere with us and all this ended in nothing or ended badly?
Lawyer:
Well, look, in America there are three people who, I think, it’s no secret, but in my opinion, I think it’s no secret either, there are three people who the Russian, like, government wanted to come home. They are Viktor Bud, Konstantin Yaroshenko and Roman Seleznev. Whether it will happen or not, I don’t know. But we hope that sooner or later he will somehow come home.
I think it will be before the end of his term. At least, I hope, because I don’t think he will simply survive. It seems to me that with the health that he has, I don’t think he will survive 20 years in prison.
Loshak:
And what can you say about his conditions now?
Lawyer:
Well, the conditions are like a prison. But it is a prison, there is only no medical care. Despite the fact that he is in a prison with a hospital, it is still not the same. And he has a metal plate in his head that moves sometimes, it needs to be looked after. Prison cannot provide the kind of medical services that he needs.
And therefore, despite the fact that they somehow support him there, in my opinion it is not enough for him to live a normal life. It seems to me that he will not survive 20 years.
Loshak:
And how do you understand that Russia is joining in for Roman on an equal footing with, for example, Bout or Yaroshenko, that is, you took these three names?
Lawyer:
I will not say how I took this. These three names exist. Much has been written about them, and again, it is no secret that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian government wanted these three people to return home.
Loshak:
There were, accordingly, also statements, right?
Lawyer:
This was brought up, this was discussed. By the way, I don’t know if this is true or not. The Americans... The Americans... I don’t know, you may have heard, several Americans have been arrested in Russia in the last few years. There was Poe Willen, who was arrested for espionage, there are a couple of other Americans who are also supposedly sitting in Russia now. The Americans, the intelligence services, the government, they think, I’m not saying whether this is true or not,
but they think, in their opinion, that these people were arrested for only one reason, in order to exchange them for some people who are sitting in America. Again, Russia didn’t tell me this, this is just what I heard from the Americans. Well, that’s what the Americans think. So we’ll see what happens.
Loshak:
But tell us about some of your other famous clients, can you list any other famous carders?
Lawyer:
I don’t like to name names, so that my clients might be offended.
Loshak:
But some of the most high-profile ones?
Lawyer:
Well, like Gary Shalon, for example, very big. Levashov, Petya Levashov, Kirill Firsov. There are many of them. In principle, these are famous names that... People who are interested in who I represented, you can easily find it on the Internet.
Igor Litvak's prices.
Loshak:
You are an expensive lawyer. This person got into such a situation. Carder. They arrested another one somewhere in the Maldives. How much does he need to be able to hire you?
Lawyer:
It all depends on what we do. And it also depends on whether we go to a jury trial or not. He takes a deal with cooperation or without cooperation. There are many options there. Plus, if a person decides to go to a jury trial, it depends. This jury trial will last 3 days, and it will last 3 weeks. There are 2 witnesses or 45 witnesses. It all depends.
In general, these are the kind of cases that start with 50 thousand dollars and go up to a million.
Loshak:
It depends on what?
Lawyer:
How much work? What is the person facing? Is he facing 5 years or is he facing 60 years? What is the evidence base against him that the lawyer should review? Then the person tells me, Igor, we are going to a jury trial. Okay, we are going to a jury trial, that is a different situation. Or he tells me, Igor, I just accept a deal without cooperation, just make me the best deal possible. I will not cooperate, I will serve my time, and go home.
That is a different story. So it all depends. It all depends. But, in principle, the simplest, like, minor federal cases, again, start with 50 thousand dollars, and they can go up to a million.
How do you feel about the arrest of carders by American special services on the territory of other countries?
Loshak:
What is your general attitude towards the United States’ practice of arresting Russian carders, especially Russian-speaking ones, on the territory of other countries?
Lawyer:
Well, how can I put it? It’s a very difficult question. There’s no simple answer to it. In general, of course, when they arrest my compatriots, you could say, on the one hand, I’m not very happy about it. Well, the system is the system. I can’t change it. And American law works like that almost all over the world.
And that’s why it won’t stop, they’ll continue to arrest them. And that’s why I can’t really say whether I have a good or bad attitude. Well, it is what it is.
Loshak:
Well, and what happened to your client Seleznev, how do you assess it?
Lawyer:
Horrible. Horrible. It’s not just him. I have... It’s not the only such case. What happened to Roman is, of course, very horrible, it’s unfair. A person without a trial, they just grabbed him, put him on a plane and took him away. Well, it's like some kind of wild west, you know. And I had other cases, I recently told you about it, gave another interview, I had a client, Evgeny Bykov.
Also famous, like a very high-profile case.
Loshak:
Also a carder?
Lawyer:
Not a carder, no, no, he was accused of creating fentanyl, it was some kind of very strong drug, and that he was laundering money. He was arrested in the Baltics. He spent 8 months in prison there, in isolation, by the way. Then they brought him to America. And he sat here for about a year and a half. And the most interesting thing is that when they brought him here, he was facing 40 years.
And the article that was brought against him was a minimum term of 10. He was facing 40. And when I went to the prosecutor's office to meet with them, I received this entire database from them. And I met with the chief prosecutor there, there was one woman, a girl. And she told me something interesting at the time. She said to me, Igor, here I am giving you a database. You understand that your client is guilty.
If he goes to a jury trial, we will prove his guilt in 5 minutes. So don't even try, don't try, there is no chance. I was like, okay, good, but the worst thing is that when I received this database and checked it, looked at it, this wiretap and everything else, there was nothing on him, that is, zero.
That is, a person, again this is in my opinion, an innocent person was arrested, he spent 8 months in prison in Estonia, then he spent a year and a half here, and only when I looked at the database, returned to the prosecutor's office and told them, guys, there is nothing here on my client, and we are going to a jury trial, so I said, we are going to a jury trial, only then they told me, okay, okay, Igor, fine, we went too far here. And he was facing 40 years, 40 years, think about it.
We finally, when I told them that there was nothing there, they withdrew this article, and in the end, now in January, he went home. That is, an innocent person was seized and tortured for more than 2 years. Do you understand? And I'm not saying that they did it on purpose, the prosecutor's office. There was some kind of bureaucracy, they made a mistake, something happened there. Well, such situations happen, such situations happen.
And that's why, when I see something like that, of course, I don't like it. I'll tell you another case, it was a very high-profile case. Fawzi Jabba. I don't know if anyone has ever heard of such a person. He has nothing to do with Russia. But that was also a very famous case. About five years ago, they arrested a man in Prague and arrested him in order to exile him to the United States.
But the most interesting thing is, why was he arrested? He was arrested because, according to the prosecutor's office, he was trying to organize Russian surface-to-air missiles, Strela. He was trying to organize them so that they would be sold to FARC. There is one in Colombia, America, where is America? A man in one country is trying to send weapons to a third country.
Not through America, you understand, but directly. And what does America have to do with it? And when I spoke with agents and prosecutors, at the time this case was going on, I tried to give them this example. I tell him, guys, imagine this situation. Boeing sells, let's say, weapons to Israel. Let's say tomorrow the Duma passes a law that no one can sell weapons to Israel.
And if the CEO of Boeing goes, say, to Spain on vacation, or to Moldova, or to some country that has a tradition of an agreement with Russia. So now this CEO, this president of Boeing can be extradited to Russia? I don’t understand. He sold weapons to Israel. What does that have to do with it? That is, this is kind of an example, you understand?
And for me, this was a very interesting case, because… why? Because it shows how much the jurisdiction of American law has expanded. America has an extradition treaty with 107 countries. Think about it. 107 countries in the world. And therefore, if a person has a criminal case in America, this is, of course, a big problem for him, and this shows that…
Loshak:
Most of the countries are closed to him.
Lawyer:
Most of the world is closed to him. And plus, the worst thing is that you can’t do anything bad in America. You might have just sent, I don’t know, a missile to Colombia and suddenly, for no apparent reason, you have a criminal case in the States where you could get life in prison, I don’t think that’s fair.
The biggest mistakes carders make.
Loshak:
What mistakes do carders usually make that they punish their own clients for?
Lawyer:
Lots of mistakes. I think the biggest mistake is having a work laptop that is also your personal laptop. There should be two. If a person has already decided to engage in carding, cybercrime, his work laptop, his personal laptop, there should be two different worlds. They can never intersect.
Plus, I don’t know why, but very often the guys who go out take these laptops with them, I don’t know why.
Loshak:
Well, they probably want to work some more.
Lawyer:
Guys, if you go out, we always leave our work laptop at home. And also, it seems to me, one of the most important reasons... In general, in the world of cybercrime, this idea of forums, where they gather and they communicate, it was, like, at the beginning of all this, it was central for these people.
And it seems to me that if people want to continue in this practice, they need to get away from it. And I am not only the first one who talks about this, I have heard other people who have talked about this, that forums are such a thing that gives a lot of loopholes. And therefore, plus people relax, people go to forums, spend 5-10 years there, they relax, they talk to hundreds of people there, and suddenly one of them could be a secret service agent or some kind of cooperator.
Therefore, it seems to me, these are the most important reasons - people relax, people do not keep security, they use their Laptabs, computers for this and for that, and over time, a portrait is built on them by the American special services, and when they leave, they are arrested.
Loshak:
You read the case materials, how do they de-anonymize them, how do they track them?
Lawyer:
That's all, there is no single way. Each criminal case is a unique case. That's why I'll even tell you that sometimes, when you receive a case, it's classified. How exactly, for example, Roman, how the secret service found out that Roman was in the Maldives, no one knows about it to this day. There are some rumors, but this was not in the case.
That's why sometimes, if the prosecutor's office, it's not always possible, especially if we go to a jury trial, there are certain rules, we have to get the entire database, but sometimes, if the prosecutor's office manages to do this, they may not even tell you how your client was found.
Loshak:
That is, this is what America considers the whole world to be its area of interest.
Lawyer:
Yes, absolutely.
Loshak:
This is what ruins our carders, yes, who.
Lawyer:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Loshak:
Those who think that, well, there is no extradition treaty here.
Lawyer:
So. Oh, no-no-no, forget it, forget it, forget it. The fact that there is no extradition treaty means nothing. First of all, extradition is only one way, and a person can be transported to the States. There are private contracts, deals there, there are secret services with some country that have agreed, let them send him away, put him on a plane. So don’t fall for it, as if this is an opinion that if there is no tradition, then everything is fine.
This is absolutely not true.
Loshak:
Now, this is probably not a question for you, more of a comment, a generation of these hackers has appeared, like the guys from Evil Corp, who do not leave Russia.
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes. There are some, they go on vacation to Sochi. They live there, they really like it there, well, it’s their decision.
Loshak:
Otherwise, most likely, nothing good awaits them. Have you worked closely with Kaznacheyev?
Lawyer:
The one who was arrested in Germany?
Loshak:
Yes, or the DJ.
Lawyer:
Yes, the DJ. I didn't work with him. I'm not his lawyer, but I've heard about him. The only thing I know is that he was released on bail. And now he's waiting to testify in the US.
About cooperation with the investigation.
Loshak:
It's just that I also heard that the person is not guilty at all. Can you tell us anything about this project? Well, as Bukh explained to us, what exists when cooperation, it's like people are offered to do a certain project in cooperation with the authorities, with American law enforcement agencies.
Lawyer:
Look. They won't bring the project to the defendant. Themselves. Because they don't know if he's going to cooperate. What if he says no, and then goes and tells his friends about the project. Therefore, if a person wants to cooperate, the defendant himself must bring the project to them. And not the other way around. And that's why projects are different again. In general, what is cooperation?
The point of cooperation is to get a good discount on the verdict. But in order to get it, you definitely need to do things for them. You need to get a document called 5K1. In order to get this document, you need to do what's called substantial assistance for them, that is, substantial assistance. What substantial assistance is, they decide, not you. That is, a person can cooperate for 3 years, well, in theory, and then go to the verdict, and they will say, well, you know, sorry, it wasn't substantial assistance, because they decide, they are the defendant themselves.
And there are certain things that the prosecutor's office looks at, and if these things were done, they are almost guaranteed to count them as Substantial Assistance. What is that? It is making indentured servitudes against other people. What is an indentured servitude? It is an indictment with numerical articles, a grand jury votes for it, then an arrest warrant is issued based on this document, and then extradition.
But in order for this indentured servitude to be voted for, the prosecutor's office must present some information to this grand jury. It takes this information from the cooperator. He cooperates, maybe, for a year, two, three. They collect some information there, then the prosecutor goes to the grand jury with the defendant, he gives some testimony, then an indentured servitude is made.
That is one way. Another way is when an arrest is made for the sake of a person, for the sake of his information. That is a very big thing. An arrest, for them, an arrest is just a thrill. For the prosecutor's office, they will give a big discount for this. Another thing they really like is when you combine a nickname with a real name.
Because I told you this before, the FBI secret service has a lot of nicknames. A bunch of nicknames, but they don't know, it's just a nickname. Where is he? What is he? What country is he in? What kind of person? They don't have this information.
Loshak:
What we say on Lazdianon.
Lawyer:
Yes. And for them, combining a nickname with a real name, for the prosecutor's office, for the secret service, this is also a very, like, big thing. And that's why they look at such things. But again, you can get 5K, this document, on the basis of which they give a kind of discount, not only on this basis. You can do other things for them. You can bring your working laptap, not rat anyone out.
I just brought the laptap, gave them the laptap, they found it there, told them the password, they dug around, found everything they needed. Cooperation too. That's why it's very different, you know? There's no such thing as one rule. Each criminal case is unique. In fact, it is unique. And that's why the approach to each criminal case is also unique.
Why do some clients refuse to cooperate with the investigation?
Loshak:
Why do some of your clients refuse to cooperate? That is, what are their motives?
Lawyer:
I can't say that. Everyone has their own reason. That is, some people, maybe they are innocent. Others, maybe they just don't want to give up their own. That is, there are many reasons.
Loshak:
Well, that is, there is such a thing as not giving up your own.
Lawyer:
Well, of course, I think, not only in cyber, I think, in any area. People are not very willing to give up their own.
Loshak:
Are there people who are not ready even under threat of not calling?
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes, there are people who take risks, go to jury trial. They take risks, they win, they go home, they lose, they go to jail. Although in America you can sometimes cooperate after the verdict. It's called Rule 35, so sometimes people say, you know what, let's take a risk, let's go to jury trial, if we lose, if everything ends badly, then we can try to cooperate after the jury trial.
So again, there is no single answer, it seems to me that each person has their own reasons, which are difficult for me to say, impossible.
Loshak:
And why do you think some people adhere to this rule of theirs, I don't know?
Lawyer:
These are their personal reasons, no one ever tells me about this.
Loshak:
Well, what is your personal point of view?
Lawyer:
I don't know, I don't know, it's hard to say. I don't think there is one rule for everyone. It seems to me that for each person it is such a personal decision, which is based on so many different factors that I can’t even try to define them now, it’s impossible.
Loshak:
Well, yes, there is such a tradition in Russian culture, and I don’t think many Western cultures have this, that you snitch, cooperate with the police,
Advokat:
It seems to me that this is a myth. It seems to me that when a person is arrested and he understands that he is facing 25 years, all this culture flies out the window, and he starts thinking to himself. Again, cooperation is not the only way to fight off a criminal case. And again, this is not the only way.
There are other ways to fight it off, even if the person is guilty. That's why I always tell people when I have the opportunity, if you've been arrested, don't talk to the police right away. Don't start cooperating right away. Wait, calm down, you have plenty of time.
Call a lawyer who handles these cases, talk to him, explain, explain to him what you did, together you develop a strategy for how to deal with this case, and that's why it seems to me that what you said about such a culture is a myth, I know about it, they say about it, but in reality, it seems to me that it doesn't work very well.
Loshak:
Well, it's just that someone, as you say yourself, doesn't want to turn in. Or are there some other reasons?
Lawyer:
You see, when a client says, I don't want to turn in, he doesn't say why he doesn't want to turn in. He just says, I'm going to fight. And that's it, we fight. It's not like the client tells me, I'm guilty, but you're defending me anyway. The client usually says, I'm not guilty. That's it, we look at the database, we look at what's there, and we hold hearings, we hold sessions and we fight at full speed.
Why does the Russian Foreign Ministry stand up for some people, but not for others?
Loshak:
Why does the Russian Foreign Ministry stand up for some people, but not for others?
Lawyer:
Good question. You know, I also sometimes noticed that they seem to show more interest in some people than in others. Why, I don't know. Maybe because the person doesn't ask. If you don't ask, no one will help you by force.
In general, I want to tell you that the Foreign Ministry, they help, they are great in this sense, I have a lot of clients from Russia, not only on cyborgs, on various, various, various cases, and if you turn to them, ask for help, they go, they observe, they come to prison, they seem to solve some problems, solve these everyday problems and everything else, so in this sense they are great.
Have you seen any evidence of cooperation between carders and the Russian authorities?
Loshak:
Have you seen any evidence of cooperation between Russian carders and the state?
Lawyer:
I haven't had anything like that, so that a client would tell me directly, let's say I worked for a Russian special service. I had suspicions, you hear something, you see something in a database. I had suspicions, but no one would tell me that directly.
Loshak:
What kind of suspicions, without names? Can you tell me what it indicated?
Lawyer:
It indicated, well, this is like evidence that was collected by American intelligence agencies, there are correspondences, there, if people, for example, studied at a military school, there is something like that, or at school, there is the FSB, well, such things, you hear, but again, so that the client would tell me directly, like I work for the FSB or the Main Directorate, I have never had anything like that.
Loshak:
Do you think this cooperation exists in reality? I think... Cooperation between these so-called criminal hackers, these black hat hackers and specialists.
Lawyer:
I think so. I think so. I have had personal clients of mine who told me that I was involved in this, I have never had anything like that. But I have spoken to other people. In this sphere, people know me, I communicate with people who have already returned, and there are rumors, rumors, again, I don’t know how true it is, but there are rumors, and by the way, the Americans are also 100% sure of this, that these carders are supported by Russian special services, but I don’t have such information directly.
About Vladislav Khorokhorin (BadB).
Loshak:
Did you work with Khorokhorin?
Lawyer:
BadB?
Loshak:
Yes.
Lawyer:
I was not his lawyer, but I am on good terms with him.
Loshak:
Just talked?
Lawyer:
We still talk, yes. But I was not his lawyer.
Reference:
Vladislav Khorokhorin is a former carder and international credit card trader who was convicted of wire fraud and served a seven-year prison sentence in the United States.
About Vladimir Drinkman.
Loshak:
Can you tell us about Volodya Drinkman? Just as a client? Well, maybe without the details of the case, in general, what kind of person is he? How does he stand out from many others who come from the work of Russian carders?
Lawyer:
Well, first of all, he is very talented in the IT field. A lot of people who are called carders are not actually hackers. They may have had articles on cybercrime with credit cards, but traditionally a hacker is a person who penetrates some closed network. And Vladimir Drinkman was very talented in this. And he is considered, probably, one of the best in the world.
At least, at the time when he was arrested, he was probably one of the best in the world who did this. One of the best, top people, who understood this better than anyone. So he is a very smart guy. By the way, from my area. I am from Vorkuta, and he is from Syktyvkar. So we didn't live that far from each other. True, I came to America in '93, and he a little later.
Loshak:
And in different ways.
Lawyer:
In different ways, yes. Yes, well, he is a very talented guy, a very smart guy, and I hope that he will soon be released and will be able to rebuild his life. He has a daughter living in America, he has a wife here now.
Loshak:
For example, does he have a chance to get an offer from an American company? Or will he be extradited?
Lawyer:
No, no, look. Anyone can get an offer. The question is, if a person can legally stay in America. That is a slightly different situation. Since he has a daughter here, maybe he will be able to stay on this basis. Let's see when he gets out. So let's see what happens.
Loshak:
And how did they manage to drag his child?
Lawyer:
I don't know. It was many years ago. They came here before I started working with him. He was already here, yes. How is he holding up? He is holding up. He has less than two years left. In my opinion, if I'm not mistaken, he is getting out in December 22, I think. So, by the way, we are now waiting for a decision on him. We are too. I filed a similar petition, which I filed for Roman.
We filed a similar petition for Vladimir Drinkman in federal court in New Jersey. We are now waiting for the decision, which should appear any day now. And if he is released, it will, of course, be a big victory too. And we will see what happens next.
The verdict of Roman Seleznev.
Loshak:
Regarding Roman. You started working with him at the time of the verdict, right? Before the verdict. How did he take the verdict? Tell us about some emotional things, this is, well, that is...
Lawyer:
Well, I think the verdict, of course, is very terrible, 27 years, this is one of the longest, if not the longest sentence that someone has ever received for a cybercrime. And, of course, I didn’t really like what the judge said about the verdict, how he would have yelled at him, like, look, you’re guilty, you should have confessed, you didn’t confess.
Well, in general, he was given, of course, a terrible sentence, 27 years. This is true for any person, not just Roman. How can one react to such a sentence? It seems to me that any person, of course, would perceive it very badly.
Loshak:
Can you tell us about the meeting with him closest to the announcement of the verdict? What did he say, how did he behave?
Lawyer:
He was upset, and we hope that we will be able to get him out of there much sooner than 27 years later.
Loshak:
Does his father help him?
Lawyer:
Help in what sense? That is, his father is there, he is here, the father’s capabilities are limited in a sense. I believe that he does everything he can do for Roman. I don’t think they were scheduled for Roman, if I’m not mistaken.
And I don’t know exactly what is going on there, so it’s hard for me to say.
Loshak:
But she’s not here.
Lawyer:
He had one wife, who, I think, later came to the States, if I'm not mistaken. But when Roman was arrested, he had another girlfriend, who was with him in the Maldives. And, as I understand it, he still communicates with her, but I can't say for sure.
Loshak:
And the children?
Lawyer:
Roman... This girl had a daughter, I think, from a previous relationship. She was not Roman's biological daughter. Roman, by the way, adopted her and looked after her. And I know that this girl misses Roman very, very much. At least that's what I heard.
About the prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States.
Loshak:
Are the American authorities able to exchange the full number? What is Russia like in general, what is the level of this cooperation between the special services and the states?
Lawyer:
You know, over the past 20 years, I do not know of a single carder who has been exchanged. And therefore, if this happens in the future, I do not know. We'll see. And the last exchange that took place between Russia and America was the famous story with Anna Chapman, 10 years ago. After that, I have not heard of any exchanges and before that either, especially with carders.
So let's see what happens in the future. As I said before, the Americans are 99% sure that there will be an exchange. They are sure that the Americans who were arrested in Russia were arrested only for this. Whether they are right or not, time will tell.
Reference:
At the time of posting this interview on the forum, in practice there have already been 2 prisoner exchanges between Russia and the United States.
An interesting case from work.
Loshak:
A classic idiotic question. Tell us some interesting cases from your practice related to Russian carders. But I know that this is a question that will never be answered.
Lawyer:
I can tell you an interesting case. It is not related to a carder, it is related to drugs. Here is a kind of funny and at the same time sad story. I had one client, his name was Giovanni Guzman. And he was arrested in Manhattan, according to the prosecutor's office, he had 10 kilograms of cocaine. And during the same period, El Chapo Guzman was arrested in Mexico.
Have you heard? That famous drug lord who was extradited to New York.
Loshak:
Whom some Hollywood star was filming.
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes. And they have the same last name. Guzman, Guzman. And the thing is that, despite the fact that they have different courts, they are, in fact, kind of next to each other. But not with me. When I went into my court, when I said that my client was Guzman, everyone stood up and looked at me like that. Like, can you imagine Guzman, the El Chapos of Mexico? I was like, no, guys, a little different, smaller. And for some reason the story there is deplorable. The thing is, we fought for a long time to get him released on bail.
They didn't want to release him on bail, in the end we achieved it, there was a large bail, they released him, they put him on his leg, and like a bracelet or like a GPS bracelet, somewhere around six months pass, one day I get a text message from some kind of FBI agent, I'm just looking and there are like bushes, just bushes, earth, bushes and in the bushes lies a GPS, I don't understand what this is, the agent tells me that your client removed the GPS and ran away.
He simply removed the GPS, threw it away and disappeared. And they searched for him for two years. Two weeks ago they found his body in Mexico. So, on the one hand, such an interesting story, but also like a cautionary tale, that guys, don't mess with drugs.
"There are a lot of carders, but few are caught."
Loshak:
About Russian carders. In general, can you say their approximate number? How many were there? 10, 20, 30? Do I have clients? Exactly, risk-taking carders.
Lawyer:
Well, I mean, not only from Russia, like, from the CIS.
Loshak:
Yes, from the CIS, well, let's put it that way.
Lawyer:
And I... And these are not only those who were my direct clients, but these are clients with whom I worked as part of a team of lawyers, well, somewhere, probably 20-25, like that.
Loshak:
So there really are a lot of them?
Lawyer:
There are a lot of them, but they catch a drop in the ocean, I'm serious. There are very, very many of them, and they arrest very few. Therefore, the chances that you will be arrested are slim. They are very slim, because tens of thousands of people who are sort of involved in these cases, they arrest maybe five a year.
How have cybercrimes changed.
Loshak:
And how do you see crimes changing now, cybercrimes?
Lawyer:
Yes, yes, yes. You know...
Loshak:
Evolution. From what to what?
Lawyer:
Yes, it was carding, a very big topic was carding, when people would sort of break into different stores, businesses, download these credit cards, and then print credit cards in their basement somewhere or in the garage, put that information on this card code, then go to ATMs and pull out cash.
This is what happened in the 2000s, it was a very big topic. Then in the 2010s it started to change a little. Already in the 2010s we see more bots, ransomware. Especially in the last 5 years, ransomware has been a very, very big topic, which just pisses off the Americans to the last.
Loshak:
Computer extortion.
Lawyer:
Yes, it's when they put some malware or some program on your computer that blocks everything, you can't, like, enter it. And they tell you, look, send me, let's say, 10 bitcoins or 20 bitcoins, and I'll give you a way to open it all later. And now there's like an epidemic in America, especially in the last few years, hospitals are suffering greatly from this, schools, small businesses.
So it's changing. Now a new topic, a very new topic - MathBud. I don't know if you've heard about it or not, but now one guy, by the way, my former client, then he ran out of money, he left me, they gave him a free government lawyer. But now he's, he's in Brooklyn in a pretrial detention center, and at the end, now at the end of April, a jury trial is starting, and he's accused of creating MathBud.
Metbat is a new term that no one has used before, but Metbat is a browser, that is, according to the prosecutor's office, what was the point of this whole idea. Look, you know Facebook, right? When you open Facebook, you watch some video about cats, right? The video is, say, one minute long.
And in the middle of the video, an ad is turned on for 15 seconds. Well, you know, right? You've all seen it. And Facebook, it works with companies, advertisers, who do all this. And Facebook gets money, there's something called 1,000 views.
For every 1,000 views, they get a certain amount of money. But how are these views determined? There's a browser. When a person goes to the browser, goes to Facebook, watches this video, this browser sends a report to Facebook so that there is a view and everything else. So, Madbot is a browser that, according to the prosecutor's office, was created to sort of emulate views.
What does that mean? You remember what "emulates," right? Let's say a person is sitting on a computer just on the side, reading the New York Times, and in the background, this madbot turns on, this browser that he doesn't even see, he goes to Facebook or other sort of advertising sites, turns on
this ad, no one looks.
Loshak:
But advertisers are happy and think they're watching.
Lawyer:
Advertisers are happy and think they're watching. In fact, no one is watching. And advertisers are losing a lot of money. And now, at the end of April, Alexander Zhukov will have a jury trial, which he's going to, and we, I and people who are interested in this, will follow this jury trial, and it will, of course, be interesting to see how it ends.
Loshak:
Was he detained in Bulgaria?
Lawyer:
In Bulgaria, yes, yes, yes, it was him. This is him in Bulgaria.
Loshak:
This is something he came up with himself, something completely new, right?
Lawyer:
I'm not saying he's guilty or innocent.
Loshak:
What do you mean, an interesting thing according to the American prosecutor's office?
Lawyer:
The prosecutor's office's versions are what they claim. Time will tell what will be proven in a jury trial.
Loshak:
Interesting, to be honest, I didn't contact this bug because we were already starting to drown in the amount of his material, yes, I thought that he was ready to talk on the phone, in my opinion, but why would he need to ask him without a clue, off the record, the day before a jury trial. What can he get? Usually people are afraid before a jury, before a trial...
Lawyer:
Maybe someone will show up, I don't know. He doesn't tell me that. Again, I represented him, he ran out of money. He now has his own free state lawyer, and he works with him.
Loshak:
That is, things are difficult for him now, the situation is difficult, right?
Lawyer:
Yes, yes. If he loses this jury trial, if he loses it...
Loshak:
He's in trouble.
Lawyer:
He's facing a serious sentence.
Loshak:
How much do they want?
Lawyer:
I don't know, but he could get up to 20.
