For years Russia has been trying to figure out how to control the internet however over the past year they have been arresting hackers and those hackers are claiming their arrests are about the US elections yet there is no proof of their claims – PB/TK
‘Big Hunt’ For Russian Hackers, But No Obvious Link To US Election Turmoil – By Howard Amos, Raphael Satter and Aritz Parra / July 31 2017
MOSCOW (AP) — Pyotr Levashov appeared to be just another comfortable member of Russia’s rising middle-class — an IT entrepreneur with a taste for upmarket restaurants, Thai massages and foreign travel.
Then police raided his vacation rental in Barcelona, marching him out in handcuffs to face charges of being one of the world’s most notorious spam lords.
Levashov’s April 7 arrest was one in a series of American-initiated operations over the past year to seize alleged Russian cybercriminals outside their homeland, which has no extradition agreement with the United States.
They come at a fraught moment in relations between Moscow and Washington, where politicians are grappling with the allegation that Kremlin hackers intervened in the U.S. election to help President Donald Trump. Through their lawyers, several defendants have suggested their arrests are linked to the election turmoil. Experts say that’s possible, though an Associated Press review of the cases found no firm evidence to back the claim.
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