NEW YORK, August 13 (Itar-Tass) - Muscovite Dmitry Smilyanets, accused by U.S. authorities of organizing the largest hacker attack in the country’s history, has pleaded not guilty at a court session held in Newark, New Jersey, on Monday.

Dmitry Smilyanets, 29, was arrested last June in the Netherlands at U.S. authorities’ request. In September, he was extradited to the United States.

The Russian citizen’s defense attorney Bruce Provda said that his client intends to contest the charges that have been brought against him and to raise the question of legality of his extradition.

According to investigators, Smilyanets, as well as three other citizens of Russia and one citizen of Ukraine, are involved in organizing the hacking of computer networks of several companies and stealing of the numbers of about 160 million credit cards. The scam victims, among others, are the NASDAQ electronic exchange, JetBlue airline, JC Penney trading network, the French retailer Carrefour and Belgian bank Dexia. The losses caused by the hackers exceeded $300 million.

The defendants were engaged in criminal activities in the period from 2005 to last summer. According to prosecutors, the role of Smilyanets in the scheme was to resell the bank cards’ data. He charged $10 for each number of American credit cards and $50 - for a European card.

Russian Vladimir Drinkman was arrested in the Netherlands together with Smilyanets. The decision on his extradition is pending. Three other defendants - Russians Roman Kotov and Alexander Kalinin and Ukrainian Michael Rytikov - are on the wanted list.