US win tug of war to Russian hacker

prague - Russian hacker Jevgeni Nikoelin is extradited to the United States. The Czech Republic put him on the plane, confirmed the government in Prague Friday.

Nikoelin (30) was arrested in Prague in October 2016 for an American arrest warrant. He is suspected of breaking into platforms such as LinkedIn and Dropbox. He would have captured the personal data of more than 100 million users. After his arrest, Russia also asked for his extradition, but for a much lighter offense. A Czech judge ruled that he could go to both countries and that it was up to the Minister of Justice to cut the knot.

That caused a struggle within the government. President Milos Zeman felt that Nikoelin should be extradited to Russia, his Prime Minister Andrej Babis wanted the hacker to go to the US. The American top politician Paul Ryan had insisted on extradition during a visit to Prague.

The United States has several requests to get Russian cyber criminals extradited. For example, Peter Levashov was recently taken by Spain on the plane to the US and Alexander Vinnik is about to be extradited by Greece. Roman Seleznev was arrested in the Maldives and he is now serving in the US a prison sentence of 27 years.