Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: TheDigitalArtist/Pixabay
Illustrative image of a cyber attack
(JNS) — Israel extradited Rostislav Panev, 51, whom the U.S. government says was a developer for “one of the most prolific” cybercrime groups, to the United States on March 13, the Justice Department said.
The dual Russian-Israeli citizen’s extradition “makes it clear: if you are a member of the LockBit ransomware conspiracy, the United States will find you and bring you to justice,” stated John Giordano, the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.
The Justice Department alleges that Panev, who it said was a developer for the ransomware group since it started in 2019 until at least February 2024, helped grow the illegal entity “into what was, at times, the most active and destructive ransomware group in the world.”
“The LockBit group attacked more than 2,500 victims in at least 120 countries around the world, including 1,800 in the United States,” the department said. “Their victims ranged from individuals and small businesses to multinational corporations, including hospitals, schools, nonprofit organizations, critical infrastructure and government and law-enforcement agencies.”
LockBit “extracted at least $500 million in ransom payments from their victims and caused billions of dollars in other losses, including lost revenue and costs from incident response and recovery,” it added.
