Security News > 2023 > February > Russian man pleads guilty to laundering Ryuk ransomware money
Russian citizen Denis Mihaqlovic Dubnikov pleaded guilty on Tuesday to laundering money for the notorious Ryuk ransomware group for over three years.
The guilty plea comes after Dubnikov was arrested in Amsterdam in November 2021 and extradited to the United States in August 2022.
From August 2018 to August 2021, Dubnikov and 13 other accomplices participated in money laundering activities involving proceeds from Ryuk ransomware attacks targeting individuals and organizations in the United States and worldwide.
Ryuk is a former ransomware-as-a-service operation active between August 2018 and the middle of 2020, when the Wizard Spider cybercrime group behind it switched to Conti ransomware.
According to a superseding indictment, after victims paid the Ryuk ransoms in the form of bitcoin to private wallets, the co-conspirators involved in the money laundering scheme divided the payments into smaller amounts.
"Specifically, in July 2019, a United States-based company paid a 250 Bitcoin Ryuk ransom after a ransomware attack. On or about July 11, 2019, in Moscow, Russia, Dubnikov accepted 35 Bitcoin from a co-conspirator in exchange for approximately $400,000," the Department of Justice said in a press release issued today.