Security News > 2020 > January > Russian Cybercrime Boss Burkov Pleads Guilty

Aleksei Burkov, an ultra-connected Russian hacker once described as "An asset of supreme importance" to Moscow, has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to running a site that sold stolen payment card data and to administering a highly secretive crime forum that counted among its members some of the most elite Russian cybercrooks.

Burkov, 29, admitted to running CardPlanet, a site that sold more than 150,000 stolen credit card accounts, and to being the founder and administrator of DirectConnection - a closely guarded underground community that attracted some of the world's most-wanted Russian hackers.

As KrebsOnSecurity noted in a November 2019 profile of Burkov's hacker nickname 'k0pa,' "a deep dive into the various pseudonyms allegedly used by Burkov suggests this individual may be one of the most connected and skilled malicious hackers ever apprehended by U.S. authorities, and that the Russian government is probably concerned that he simply knows too much."

Burkov was arrested in 2015 on an international warrant while he was visiting Israel, and over the ensuing four years the Russian government aggressively sought to keep him from being extradited to the United States.

According to a story today in The Times of Israel, the Kremlin has signaled that Russian President Vladimir Putin may make a decision "In the near future," on a possible pardon for Issachar, whose mother reportedly met with Putin while the Russian leader was visiting Israel last week.

News URL

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/01/russian-cybercrime-boss-burkov-pleads-guilty/