ASTANA, January 3. /TASS/. The General Prosecutor's Office of Kazakhstan has confirmed reports that the country extradited Russian national Nikita Kislitsyn to Russia, where he is accused of hacking and extortion.

"On December 21, 2023, Kislitsyn was transferred to representatives of Russian law enforcement agencies in accordance with the established procedure," an office representative told TASS.

Extradition of Kislitsyn, a cybersecurity expert at a company called F.A.C.C.T. (formerly known as Group-IB), was sought by both Russia and the US. Russian prosecutors said on December 21 that Kazakhstan would send the man to Russia.

According to the Russian investigation, 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. Kazakh authorities detained Kislitsyn at Almaty Airport on June 22 under a US-initiated Interpol warrant.