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Russian side receives no notification from US that Vladimir Drinkman arrives in the US

Vladimir Drinkman was detained in Amsterdam on June 28, 2012 at the FBI request on suspicion of complicity to cyber crimes

© ITAR-TASS/Evgeniy Kurskov

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Moscow continues protecting rights of Russian national Vladimir Drinkman

WASHINGTON, November 6 /TASS/. The Russian side has received no US notification that Russian national Vladimir Drinkman, suspected of credit card swindling, has arrived in the United States from the Netherlands, Russian embassy representatives in Washington and New York told TASS on Thursday.

Vladimir Drinkman was detained in Amsterdam on June 28, 2012 at the FBI request on suspicion of complicity to cyber crimes. The Dutch authorities have promised to extradite him to the United States.

The extradition process may turn out to be long.

Under international agreements, the Americans are supposed to inform Russian diplomats of all detained Russian citizens and allow Russian consular workers to visit them later.

More and more Russians whom Washington suspects of various offences have been detained in third countries in recent years and delivered to Washington. The Americans take such instances of extraterrestrial application of their laws for granted. They do not comment the international and legal aspects of such situations. As a rule, they issue boastful press releases about the “successes” of their security services and law enforcers.

Four Russian nationals are facing charges in connection with a high-profile hacker case. They include Vladimir Drinkman, Alexander Kalinin, Roman Kotov and Dmitry Smilyanets as well as Ukrainian national Mikhail Rytikov. They have been charged with credit cards swindling and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Vladimir Drinkman is the chief suspect. He tops the international wanted list of hackers. Investigators say he was at the helm of a criminal group that caused serious damage to the New York based NASDAQ electronic stock exchange and the 7-Eleven chain stores for seven years.

Drinkman may face up to 20 years in prison under US laws.

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