The FBI has put a 28-year-old resident of Barnaul Yevgeny Polyanin on the wanted list.

In the United States, he is suspected of cyber fraud using ransomware worth about $ 13 million. Washington considers the Russian to be involved in the activities of the hacker group REvil, accused of large-scale cyber attacks around the world.

"It is assumed that he is in Russia, possibly in Barnaul," the American intelligence agency said in a statement.

At the same time, Washington managed to return $ 6.1 million of the $ 13 million that Polyanin allegedly received from victims from among American companies in different states.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland expressed the hope that "the authorities of all countries in which the wanted hackers are located will assist the United States."

Polyanin himself is not getting in touch now, his mother Svetlana told RT.

She is a pensioner and lives alone in the country.

Polyanina said that she learned about the US accusations against her son from the news.

“I’m just in shock, the second day I live on pills, I can’t believe these accusations.

<…> I myself also live in Barnaul, but since the information appeared that my son was wanted, I have not spoken to him - he does not get in touch, does not pick up the phone, ”Svetlana shared.

According to Svetlana Polyanina, from the moment the information about the search for her son appeared in the media, neither the FSB nor the police came to her.

She did not receive any information about this from the Russian special services.

“I keep thinking, maybe it’s some kind of fake, because if something really happened, the FSB and the police would probably have come running to me a long time ago, and they would start to find out something,” he says. interlocutor RT.

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However, Russian law enforcement officers have no reason to look for Polyanin yet.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation RT explained that in Russia they will be able to connect to his searches only if the young man is declared on the international wanted list through Interpol.

“First, the FBI turns to Interpol to put the person on the international wanted list.

Then Interpol turns to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation with a request to find this person on the territory of the Russian Federation.

And if the Ministry of Internal Affairs finds him, it informs foreigners about it through Interpol channels.

After that, Interpol sends a request to the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to extradite this person to foreign services.

The Russian side is studying this issue and decides whether to extradite the person or not.

If Polyanin was not put on the wanted list by Interpol, then there is nothing to talk about yet, "a representative of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation told RT in an interview with RT.

Capable student

According to Svetlana Polyanina, her son's current job is not at all related to programming.

She noted that Evgeny studied at the Physics and Technology Faculty of Altai State University.

According to RT, Polyanin graduated from the Altai State University in 2017.

Classmates describe him as a talented and capable student.

“At the university he was one of the best, he was very well versed in programming - he had an extraordinary approach to completing assignments, he did an excellent job of writing the codes that were asked to us at the university.

Usually, everyone took the finished work from senior students, and there were only a few people with such good logic and programming skills.

Here Eugene was just one of those, "- said the interlocutor of RT Alyona.

Another classmate of Polyanin, Konstantin, also noted Evgeny's ability to program, but added that he did not always study excellently, and expressed doubts about the accusations against his former classmate.

“I heard that they are looking for him, but I don’t know what to think about it.

When we studied, nothing of the kind was noticed behind him.

At the university, he mainly devoted time to the gym and, in fact, training.

If he had any other hobbies, he did not really talk about them, ”says Konstantin.

Before the information about the search for Evgeny Polyanin in the United States appeared, the young man had already got into Russian news bulletins - in 2019 he had an accident while using the Yandex.Taxi service in Moscow.

Polyanin received serious injuries and filed a claim for compensation for damage to the service, in 2020 he won the court.

This information was confirmed by Polyanina's mother.

Svetlana told RT that after the accident, her son spent a whole year bedridden.

“He had an accident then, and no one helped us, not a penny.

He lay there for a year.

In the end, we were compensated three years later, ”recalls Yevgeny's mother.

Who are REvil?

The head of the Group-IB Computer Forensics Laboratory, Oleg Skulkin, explained to RT that the REvil group, to which the authorities of some countries attribute links with the Russian Federation, first came to the attention of foreign intelligence services after the first major hacker attacks in 2019.

“The list of countries in which companies have been subjected to these attacks is quite extensive.

In addition to the United States, these are Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Spain, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy and many others, ”says the interlocutor of RT.

Skulkin also explained that the basis of the group's criminal activities is the use of malware, with the help of which hackers gain access to the databases of the victim companies and then extort money from them.

“This is usually data that is important to the company, one that should not get into the public domain.

This is not necessarily compromising evidence.

There may be contracts or personal data of employees, trade secrets.

As for the damage, it is estimated in hundreds of millions of dollars.

The size of the required ransom ranged from several tens of thousands of dollars to tens of millions, ”the expert says.

According to the interlocutor of RT, the members of the REvil group have long been trying to figure out and catch the countries affected by their actions, but it is almost impossible to find out the real location of the hackers.

“The attackers use hacked or rented servers in various countries, as well as a number of effective means of anonymization,” explains the head of Group-IB.

- According to the representatives of the affiliate program themselves, the number of partners reached 60 people.

In an interview with RT, Skulkin also commented on the opinion that the REvil group is allegedly connected with Russia.

“The fact that at least some of the hackers using the REvil ransomware are Russian-speaking does not make them citizens of the Russian Federation,” Skulkin emphasized.