The 21-year-old man was wanted by the United States for his alleged involvement in a case of cybercrime.

The Frenchman was arrested and imprisoned in Morocco, the Moroccan police said on Friday, confirming information from

L'Obs

.

Sébastien Raoult was arrested on May 31 at Rabat-Salé airport while he was the subject of a red notice issued by Interpol at the request of American justice, in the context of a case of cyberpiracy, added the police source, without further details.

According to Moroccan media, this arrest was “the result of cooperation between the Moroccan General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) and the FBI”.

“American judicial imperialism”

“He only stayed in France and Morocco.

If there was piracy, it was from France.

The natural judge is the French judge”, underlined his lawyer Me Philippe Ohayon, who asks that his client be extradited to France and not to the United States.

He sent letters to this effect to the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron, to the French Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti and to the parquet floor of Epinal in the Vosges, where his client is domiciled.

“We feel a form of American judicial imperialism,” added Mr. Ohayon.

Requested by AFP, the Moroccan prosecutor's office did not respond.

The young man, a computer science student from the Vosges, has been imprisoned since June 2 in the Tiflet 2 prison, near Rabat.

116 years in prison

According to

L'Obs

, the FBI suspects him of belonging to a group of hackers - the "ShinyHunters", a reference to the Pokémon universe - accused of being "prolific cybercriminals" by the American authorities.

The latter demand the extradition of the suspect for acts of “conspiracy to commit electronic fraud and abuse”, “electronic fraud” and “serious identity theft”.

Among the companies that this group would have targeted is notably Microsoft.

Sébastien Raoult would risk a sentence of 116 years in prison in the United States for the facts attributed to him.

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