Three weeks after Russia started dropping bombs on Ukraine in late February, a talented young computer programmer named Mark Sokolovsky climbed into a Porsche Cayenne with his girlfriend to get away from the fighting.
The pair made their way through Poland and then Germany before stopping in the Netherlands, where they thought they were safe. Little did they know that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and investigators in Europe had been watching them all along.
Sokolovsky, 26, had been named late last year in a sealed criminal indictment in federal court in Texas that alleged he was a key figure behind a pervasive type of malware known as Raccoon Infostealer that prosecutors say has infected millions of computers around the world, stealing financial login credentials and money from an untold number of victims.
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Days after Sokolovsky crossed into the country, Dutch police arrested him in Amsterdam on charges of computer fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and identity theft. He faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted and remains in custody in the Netherlands while fighting an extradition proceeding that would send him to the U.S.
Messages left with Niels Van Schaik, the Dutch attorney representing Sokolovsky in his extradition proceeding, weren’t immediately returned.
Read more: Market Watch
