The Canadian hacker who is accused of hacking into Yahoo! Inc. and stealing the email accounts for the Russian government will still remain in prison until June when a hearing on whether to send him to the US comes out.
A judge in Hamilton, Ontario has ruled Tuesday that it is too risky to let the accused hacker Karim Baratov to go out on bail ahead of this hearing, even if he is placed under house arrest said the judge.
“Why would he stick around?” Judge of Ontario Superior Court, Alan Whitten wrote in his ruling denying the Baratov’s bail request. “He can ply his trade from anywhere around the world.”
The US government has been increasing pressure on the Russian hacking networks. On last week, St. Petersburg resident Peter Levashov, also described as the world’s most notorious criminal email spammer was found and arrested while vacationing to Spain at the request of the US. In December, Treasury Department imposed many sanctions on two Russians, Aleksey Alekseyevich and Belan Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev for engaging in various “malicious cyber-enabled activities.”
Baratov’s parents have agreed to monitor him if he were to be released and placed under the house arrest, and pledged 845,000 Canadian dollars ($634,000) of home equity as the surety. Baratov is one of four people indicted by the US government last month and have charged with working for Dmitry Dokuchaev who is a hacker for Russia’s security service – the successor to the KGB.
Flight Risk
Heather Graham, a lawyer for the government, urged the judge to keep Baratov in custody, saying he poses a “severe” flight risk. Baratov apparently has access to large quantities of cash and connections to Russian intelligence officials, she said.
Barakov’s lawyer had countered that his client turned in his Canadian passport and has nowhere to go.