Surprising that it’s not connected to the Shreks’ company, “Fraud Guarantee”, and yet sanctions got removed from related Russian companies. Individual-1 Trump obeys his masters, even if there are a lot of folks with similar names.
Lavrov may have ordered Trump to *remove immediately* three Russian ‘companies’ connected with Evil Corp cyber ops; and they’re now stricken from the recently imposed list of sanctioned Russian entities.
Even as Yakubets got indicted by the FBI, he’s also connected to the FSB, and Russian companies connected to Evil Corp got their US sanctions dropped.
US authorities have filed charges against two Russian nationals alleged to be running a global cyber crime organisation named Evil Corp. An indictment named Maksim Yakubets and Igor Turashev
Evil Corp is the Russia-based cybercriminal organization responsible for the development and distribution of the Dridex malware. The Dridex malware is a multifunctional malware package that is designed to automate the theft of confidential information, to include online banking credentials from infected computers.
home.treasury.gov/…
Operating from the basements of Moscow cafes, investigators say Yakubets' group targeted victims in some 21 municipalities in one of the most widespread malware campaigns U.S. authorities have ever encountered.
The group infiltrated banks and non-profits from California to Maine. Among the victims, authorities say, were a luggage business in New Mexico, a dairy in Ohio and a community of Franciscan sisters in Chicago.
"These two cases demonstrate our commitment to unmasking the perpetrators behind the world's most egregious cyberattacks," said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski, who leads the Justice Department's criminal division. "It is fair to say that they are not out of business at this point, but that is our ultimate goal."
Officials say Evil Corp. developed and distributed a type of malware that infected computers around the world and harvested banking credentials in order to steal some $100 million.
www.wfdd.org/...
A decade-long crime spree perhaps given up by Russia for some other undeclared considerations. Did Gusev have more Kremlin juice than Takubets and Turashev to merit the lifting of sanctions and evade the indictments.
Aside from the optics of Lavrov appearing for Trump during impeachment, was he in the US among many reasons, to assure the sanction-lifting on Gusev, no different than the lifting of sanctions on Oleg Deripaska coincident with the announcement of the $200 million aluminum plant in Eastern Kentucky.
The FBI also first asked for that assistance in 2010. But in a separate announcement Thursday of sanctions against Evil Corp and its enablers, spanning 17 individuals and seven entities in all, the US Treasury Department alleged that Yakubets later signed on with Russia’s FSB intelligence agency. “In addition to his leadership role within Evil Corp, Yakubets has also provided direct assistance to the Russian government,” the agency’s statement reads. “As of 2017, Yakubets was working for the Russian FSB, one of Russia’s leading intelligence organizations.”
It’s unclear exactly what role Yakubets is accused of playing with the FSB, but the allegations include “acquiring confidential documents through cyber-enabled means and conducting cyber-enabled operations.”
The indictment, criminal complaint, and sanctions announcement collectively paint Yakubets as something of a cybercrime Zelig. “Yakubets has allegedly been involved in cybercrime on an almost unimaginable scale for over a decade,” said the DOJ’s Brian Benczkowski.
https://t.co/sUgyJ5qKqC
Interfax news agency claims the sanction lifting is due to name confusion, considering all those Denis Gusevs in Russia being like John Smiths in the US.