A Russian professional basketball player has been arrested for allegedly acting as a negotiator for a ransomware gang.
26-year old Daniil Kasatkin, was reportedly arrested last month at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris after flying in with his fiancée.
6′ 7″ tall Kasatkin, who until recently was playing for Moscow basketball team MBA, was arrested at the request of US prosecutors who believe that he negotiated ransom payments as part of a criminal operation that has attacked some 900 organisations, including two federal institutions.
News of Daniil Kasatkin’s arrest last month was not publicly known until reported in the French media this week, which appeared to delight in
The basketball player’s detention has enraged Russian authorities, whose embassy in Paris complained that it had not been given access to the athlete.
“We have requested consular access to our compatriot. Unfortunately, despite the steps taken, we have not yet been granted access due to the position of the French authorities. This is not an isolated case: we are facing repeated delays in the granting of consular access to Russian citizens, as we have once again recently pointed out to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Meanwhile, Kasatkin’s legal team have been arguing that their client’s detention will damage his physical condition and compromise the rest of his career, claiming that “he has no chair in his cell, no access to a room or a sports field.”
The basketball player’s weight is said to have dropped from 95kg to 89kg while he has been in prison.
Furthermore, Kasatkin’s lawyer Frédéric Bélot claims that not only is his client entirely innocent, but also that he is no technical whiz kid:
“He bought a second-hand computer. He did absolutely nothing. He’s stunned… He’s useless with computers and can’t even install an application. He didn’t touch anything on the computer: it was either hacked, or the hacker sold it to him to act under the cover of another person.”
Of course, you wouldn’t need to be particularly computer-savvy to be an effective negotiator for a ransomware gang. One presumes that in the fullness of time the US authorities will share what evidence they have which has lead them to request Kastakin’s extradition.
At the time of writing, US authorities have released no information about their investigation, and it is not clear to which ransomware group Kasatkin has been linked.
