The US and UK recently imposed sanctions on seven Russians, including…

The US and UK recently imposed sanctions on seven Russians, including Vitaly Kovalev, who was a senior figure in the hacker group Trickbot. Vitaly Kovalev is also known under the online pseudonyms “Bentley” and “Ben”. According to the indictment, Kovalev is charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and eight counts of bank fraud in connection with a series of break-ins into victims’ bank accounts at various U.S. financial institutions that occurred in 2009 and 2010, predating his involvement in the Dyre and Trickbot group. Group.

As the Cheka-OGPU learned, what is called Trickbot in the USA is the Russian hacker group Conti. An investigation was carried out against its leaders on the territory of the Russian Federation, and Vitaly Kovalev was even detained in 2016 as part of a case initiated under Article 273 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, Part 2 (creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs). However, surprisingly, he was released on his own recognizance, and then this case was completely hushed up.
It is extremely interesting why Bentley was shown such humanism, while the leaders of other hacker groups are now in custody, for example, the Flint groups and The Infraud Organization.