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Russian cybercriminal Alexei Burkov deported from US to Russia — interior ministry

He was engaged in criminal activity in the period from 2008 to 2015
Alexei Burkov (center) Andrei Shirokov/TASS
Alexei Burkov (center)
© Andrei Shirokov/TASS

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. Russian national Alexei Burkov, accused of cybercrimes, has been deported from the USA to Russia. Police officers detained him on his arrival to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, Russian Interior Ministry Spokeswoman Irina Volk said on Monday.

"Police officers of the linear department of the Russian Interior ministry at Sheremetyevo Airport and the National Central Bureau of Interpol detained Russian citizen Alexey Burkov, who was deported from the United States. He is accused of involvement in the manufacture and sale of counterfeit bank cards and trading in confidential data of customers of credit and financial institutions," she said.

According to Volk, the detainee was engaged in criminal activity in the period from 2008 to 2015. In 2017, he was charged in absentia with crimes under articles on theft (Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), illegal obtaining and disclosure of information constituting a commercial, fiscal or banking secrecy (Article 183 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), illegal misuse of payment funds (Article 187 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and the creation, use and distribution of harmful computer programs (Article 273 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). He was put on the wanted list by Interpol by a request from the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

"In 2015, Burkov was detained by local police in Israel. In 2019, by the resolution of the Supreme Court of Israel, he was extradited to the USA where he was also wanted on charges of cybercrimes. Last year, the federal court of Alexandria, Virginia found the Russian guilty and handed him a sentence of nine years in prison," Volk said.

However, recently the US decided on Burkov’s deportation. "Today on arrival from New York to Moscow, he was taken into custody by Russian police officers," Interior Ministry Spokeswoman added.