July 28, 2022 at 9:07 PM
https://www.nouvelobs.com/justice/20220728.OBS61435/un-etudiant-francais-accuse-d-un-vaste-piratage-par-le-fbi-arrete-au-maroc.html
Apparently, a Shinyhunters hacker of french origin going by the name Sezyo was arrested.
Apparently, a Shinyhunters hacker of french origin going by the name Sezyo was arrested.
French student accused of vast FBI hacking arrested in Morocco
Info Obs - Arrested on June 1 at Rabat airport, Sébastien Raoult, a
21-year-old Frenchman from Epinal is claimed by American justice. The
FBI suspects him of belonging to a group of hackers who recently hit the
headlines. Four other people were reportedly interviewed in France at
the request of the United States.
"I had missed Morocco", wrote Sébastien Raoult, on March 3, in a tweet
accompanied by a photo taken from the terrace of a restaurant offering a
wide view of the sea. A few weeks later, the panorama of this
21-year-old Frenchman has seriously shrunk. Since June 1, this former
computer science student at the Epitech school in Nancy
(Meurthe-et-Moselle) has been spending his days in a cell in Tiflet 2
prison, east of Rabat, with seven other fellow prisoners. .
On the day of his arrest, Sébastien Raoult, who had reached the end of
his three-month tourist visa, was about to take a flight to Brussels
from Rabat airport. After presenting his passport to the police, he was
immediately arrested because of an Interpol red card issued against him
by a Washington State prosecutor in the United States.
The young Frenchman, from Epinal (Vosges), has been in the crosshairs of
FBI agents for several months. The latter suspect him of being "one of
the important members" of the ShinyHunters hacker group - a reference to
the Pokémon universe -, presented as "prolific cybercriminals" by the
American authorities. Appearing in the spring of 2020, these
cyberhackers made headlines by offering for sale on the darknet nearly
200 million stolen data after breaking into the computer systems of a
dozen companies around the world or by asking for ransoms to their
targets. Among the victims mentioned: Microsoft or Tokopedia, a major
e-commerce player in Indonesia. An Indian company would also have been
asked by the group for the sum of 1.2 million dollars in bitcoins in
exchange for the return of its data.
The United States is seeking his extradition on charges of "conspiracy
to commit electronic fraud and abuse", "electronic fraud" and "serious
identity theft". According to the FBI investigation, these offenses were
allegedly committed from French IP addresses, but also more recently
from Moroccan IP addresses, which would be linked to Sébastien Raoult.
American investigators also reportedly got their hands on conversations
attributed to the Frenchman on platforms in which he mentioned the said
hacks.
“He firmly denies the facts and claims that his accounts were used
without his knowledge”, proclaims the father of Sébastien Raoult. It was
friends of his son who came to pick him up at Brussels airport who, not
seeing him get off the plane and unable to reach him, warned him of his
disappearance. The same evening, he calls the French consulate in
Morocco on the emergency number. It was only two days later that he got
an answer: his son was arrested at the airport, without being told the
reasons for this arrest. “They just told me that it was neither a blood
crime nor an attack on state security. We are never prepared for this
kind of situation, ”he explains.
“He feels a bit abandoned…”
According to his father, the young Frenchman, currently under
extradition, would be imprisoned in "conditions as good as possible in
this kind of situation": "Of course, he is a rare bird in this prison,
the detainees were mainly there for theft or drugs. But he is fine, he
has a steely mind, even if he feels a little abandoned by France”, he
explains to “Obs”.
A first extradition hearing was held in recent days. The merits of the case have not yet been discussed.
Aspiring to work in computer security, Sébastien Raoult had decided in
December to stop his studies to “run the world”. He who, on social
networks, presents himself as a "digital nomad" and would have learned
to speak English in front of his computer, according to his father.
In his world tour project, however, we guess the young man was reluctant
to visit American penitentiaries. In the United States, Sébastien
Raoult risks a 116-year prison sentence for the acts attributed to him.
“The extradition request submitted by the United States amounts in fact
to exposing him to a life sentence prohibited by article 3 of the ECHR
[European Convention on Human Rights, editor’s note]”, claims Me
Philippe Ohayon, the young man's lawyer.
In France, the alleged offenses would be punishable by a maximum of five
years' imprisonment, according to the lawyer. The latter is therefore
preparing to request his extradition to France from the public
prosecutor of Epinal, where the facts are said to have been committed:
“We request that proceedings be instituted in France concerning the
alleged facts and the issuance of a request for extradition against him,
advance Me Philippe Ohayon. We are not looking for impunity, we are
only asking to be judged where we can defend ourselves. »
A letter has just been sent to the President of the Republic Emmanuel
Macron and to the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti to inform them
of the situation of the young Frenchman.
According to our information, four other French people, suspected of
belonging to the same group, were recently interviewed in this case by
the police officers of the Central Office for the Fight against Crime
linked to Information and Communication Technologies. And this in the
context of a request for international criminal assistance from the
United States dated May 2022. They would also have been the subject of
searches.
Contacted by "l'Obs", the Paris prosecutor's office did not respond to our request.
