Google Translate Helps FBI Catch Two Russian-Speaking Hackers

In the US, FBI officers arrested two unemployed people, Russian Pavel Kublitsky and citizen Alexander Khodyrev, who led a luxurious lifestyle. This is reported by the newspaper Kommersant.

According to the publication, American law enforcement believes that those arrested are the administrators of a large darknet forum. A wide range of illegal goods and services were sold there, from stolen credit card data to DDoS attacks and courses on criminal earnings.

According to Kommersant, the FBI spent four years working to catch the hackers. One of the obstacles in the investigation was that the forum was Russian-language. Therefore, the FBI reported, its employees had to resort to specialized software - Google Translate.

The department noted that the forum, which was administered by Kublitsky and Khodyrev, was very popular among cybercriminals. Thus, as of July 2020, about 170 thousand people were registered on it, and in March 2023, the forum administration claimed that the number of its users exceeded 350 thousand.

Apparently, running a criminal darknet forum brought Kublitsky and Khodyrev considerable income. They both flew to the US two years ago and asked for asylum. Having settled in Florida, they officially remained unemployed, but lived a luxurious lifestyle.

Thus, according to Kommersant, Kublitsky, in particular, bought himself a fashionable condominium in Sunny Isles Beach, a suburb of Miami Beach nicknamed "Little Moscow." In turn, Khodyrev bought a 2023 Corvette sports car worth $110,000.

Now both are charged with conspiracy to traffic and possess devices for unauthorized access to information. If convicted, the hackers face prison terms of 10 to 20 years.

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