Finally, after 2 years, the United States Department of Justice has managed to identify the man behind the mega banking hack. A Maryland man accused of participating in a yearslong scheme described by the Justice Department as “securities fraud on cyber steroids” was arrested in Russia on immigration charges several months ago following a lengthy manhunt, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. Joshua Aaron, 32, was arrested in May after police showed up at his apartment near downtown Moscow and found he had violated the terms of his visa. Aaron was subsequently jailed in a Russian prison and ordered to leave the country. FBI which was already pursuing Aaron issued an arrest warrant in June 2015 on four counts charging him with crimes including conspiracy to commit computer hacking, security fraud and aggravated identity theft. However, FBI failed to cut any deal with Russian authorities for extraditing Aaron despite placing him on FBI’s “most wanted” list of suspected cyber criminals. The biggest hurdle for trying Aaron in the United States was that Russia doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S. Finally, DoJ and FBI have managed to reach some sort of compromise for getting Aaron to stand trial in the United States. Instead Russia has offered to send Aaron to the U.S. in exchange for a “reciprocal” act, according to court transcripts seen by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Aaron is free to leave the country as per Russian judge’s decision and he doesn’t know he is the most wanted cyber criminal in the United States as per Bloomberg report.
