DarkMarket_ Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You - Misha Glenny [123]
After Vega arrived in Brooklyn, the Secret Service offered him a deal: if he were to testify against Dimitry Golubov and other members of Ukraine’s establishment (not hackers, but senior political figures), then they would drop the charges. But if he refused, they would bring further charges against him filed in different states of the Union. They would continue until he agreed to cooperate.
Regardless of what Vega has or has not done, he has already spent three times longer in jail than those sentenced for their activity in Shadowcrew, with two unresolved cases still hanging over him and the threat of more in the wings. Vega has been suffering from advanced dental decay for several years and is in constant pain, often unable to eat properly. He has been refused medical assistance by the Bureau of Prisons and the US Marshall Service.
There is no prospect of Vega being released in the foreseeable future.
Maksym Kovalchuk, aka Blade
Kovalchuk was arrested in May 2003 in Thailand and extradited to the United States, where he served four years in jail. The FBI consented to a negotiated plea agreement and he was released in late 2007, after which he returned to anonymity in the Ukraine. The FBI’s decision to release him contrasts starkly with the Secret Service’s tactic of holding onto Roman Vega.
Renukanth Subramaniam, aka JiLsi
On 26th February 2010 Subramaniam pleaded guilty to one charge of credit-card fraud and four charges of mortgage fraud, for which the judge at Blackfriars Crown Court sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment. At the time of writing he is an inmate at West London’s Wormwood Scrubs prison, whose alumni include the composer Sir Michael Tippett and the Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards.
With time off for good behaviour, Subramaniam is expected to be released in late July 2012. The bulk of his case relates not to DarkMarket but to mortgage fraud. The prosecution included five such instances (although three of these applications were turned down by the financial institutions). While mortgage fraud is a crime in its own right, the prosecution suggested a link between Subramaniam’s earnings from DarkMarket and his ability to pay the mortgages. In fact, Subramaniam argues that he was not responsible for the mortgage payments, as he applied for the loans on behalf of friends who were not eligible to do so themselves. Additionally, Subramaniam is awaiting the outcome of his Proceeds of Crime hearing to see whether he is liable to further forfeiture of funds. Under the terms of his Prevention of Crime Order, he will have no unsupervised access to computers for five years following his release from prison.
Detlef Hartmann, aka Matrix001
On 9th October 2007 the Regional Court in Stuttgart ruled that Hartmann should stand trial on thirteen counts of credit-card fraud. However, the same court announced that the motion to prosecute him on a charge of Forming a Criminal Conspiracy was rejected. With the more serious charge dropped, Hartmann was released from Stammheim prison, where he had spent the previous four months. The key decision preventing his prosecution on the charge of conspiracy lay in the court’s interpretation of Germany’s Basic Law, its constitution, which states that a member of a conspiracy must feel part of a ‘unified group’ in which there is presumed ‘the subordination of the individual to the will of the collective’. The judge argued that the fluid nature of the Internet and the membership structures of DarkMarket did not meet these criteria – a ruling that, of course, has important implications for the development of laws relating to crime on the Internet in Germany.
In July 2008 Hartmann received a suspended sentence of twenty-one months for the fraud charges. He has since taken up his studies in graphic design again and has completely broken any links with