Only referred to as Mr. A, a Russian man was arrested at Seoul International Airport when he was trying to leave the South Korea to return to Russia.
He was arrested by the authorities because he was behind the notorious TrickBot malware, a Russian-based malware gang that used botnets to launch attacks throughout the U.S. in 2020, and believed to have infected millions of computers across the world since 2015.
Mr. A has been in South Korea since February 2020. After more than a year, one day, he was trying to leave the country to return to his native home in Russia, but couldn't because the Seoul officials cancelled international travel because of 'COVID-19' coronavirus.
This forced him to remain in Seoul.
Then, when South Korea's air travel restrictions were lifted, Mr. A had his passport expired. He had no choice but to wait until the local Russian embassy issued a replacement for his documents.
Unfortunately for him, while waiting for his passport, the U.S. was starting to investigate TrickBot.
And during the investigation, the U.S. officials arrested Alla Witte, a 55-year-old Latvian woman that according to U.S. prosecutors, was among TrickBot’s programmers.
After investigating Witte’s private conversations with other TrickBot members, Mr. A became the target of the officials.
When he was caught, the Seoul High Court Criminal Division 20 (Chief Judge Jeong Seon-jae Baek Suk-jong Lee Jun-hyun) said that Mr. A was charged for working with the TrickBot gang and developing a web browser-related component for the group after answering a job ad in 2016. That in the same way as Witte, when she was recruited.
Documents in Witte’s case cite private conversations between TrickBot members regarding the recruitment process.
According to the conversations, the TrickBot gang was upfront with the people who applied for the job, and told them what they’re doing was illegal.
Witte accepted the job, and so did Mr. A.
The prosecutors plan to to extradite Mr. A to the U.S. but his attorney is opposed to the decision, claiming that if his client is sent to the U.S., he “will be subjected to excessive punishment.”
