Darkode creator and former NiceHash CTO was arrested in Germany over US charges that claimed he was a part of a hacking organization. The charges stated that the alleged hacking organization was responsible for the theft of millions of dollars. Former NiceHash CTO, Matjaz Skoranjec was arrested by German authorities on September 23. US Department of Justice has already released a warrant for his extradition.
Matjaz Skoranjec arrested for deploying Darkode
Matjaz is wanted in the United States for establishing and operating a cybercrime forum called Darkode between the years 2008 and 2013. Moreover, he created and deployed Mariposa, one of the largest botnets in history.
This summer a United States judicial court unsealed indictments against Matjaz, Florencio Carro Ruiz, Mentor Leniqi and Thomas Kennedy McCormick. Allegedly all these individuals were connected with Darkode.
The United States had initially released an international warrant back in 2011. If convicted Matjaz may be facing jail time up to fifty years.
The forum Darkode itself was dismantled in 2015 by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) while working beside 20 other countries. The DOJ stated that Darkode was one of the most significant threats to cyber data stored on computers. Furthermore, DOJ claimed that Darkode was affecting users not only in the US but across the entire world. Darkrode was one of the biggest English-medium forum for hackers to unite from across the globe.
Matjaz has previously served five years in Slovenian prison for unleashing Mariposa upon the world. The botnet had already affected over a million computers at the time causing four million dollars in damages.
Martin Skorjanc, Matjaz’s father, stated that it does not make sense for a person to carry out two sentences for the same crime. He pointed out that no precedent exists under international law.
Germany has been getting more involved in blockchain and cryptocurrencies recently. Recently, one of the largest German stock exchange launched a Bitcoin trading platform. This is the country’s first peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform.
