MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Kazakhstan will extradite Russian citizen Nikita Kislitsyn, who faces hacking and extortion charges, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said.
Both Russia and the United States have been seeking the extradition of Kislitsyn, head of the cyberattacks protection solutions department at the F.A.C.C.T. company, previously known as Group-IB. "At the request of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, the competent authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan will extradite Nikita Kislitsyn for prosecution under Article 272.3 of the Russian Criminal Code ('Unauthorized access to computer data protected by law, committed by a group of people acting as part of a conspiracy, resulting in significant damage') and Article 163.2 of the Russian Criminal Code ('Extortion')," the Russian law enforcement body reported.
According to investigative data, in October 2022 Kislitsyn and his accomplices unlawfully gained access to the data of a certain company’s server. After the hackers copied the information, they extorted money from the data owner, demanding that the latter pay 550,000 rubles ($5,972 at current exchange rates) in cryptocurrency to prevent the data from being leaked to public sources.
Based on a US-initiated Interpol warrant, Kazakh authorities detained Kislitsyn at Almaty Airport on June 22. Additionally, Russian authorities placed him on the federal wanted list in Russia and the Russian Prosecutor General's Office sent an extradition request to their Kazakh counterparts in June. "Thanks to the coordinated actions of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office and the close, well-organized cooperation with the competent authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a decision was reached to extradite the accused," the Russian Prosecutor General's Office noted.