Bare Safety has written and talked about Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins earlier than, in each article and podcast kind.
Vachon-Desjardins had been a federal authorities employee within the Canadian Capital Area (he comes from Gatineau in Quebec, instantly throughout the river from the federal capital Ottawa in Ontario)…
…however he appears to have determined that becoming a member of the cybercrime underworld can be rather more profitable than his authorities job, and plainly did certainly rack up a small fortune in unlawful earnings.
He was tracked down, arrested, and convicted in his native Canada, and sentenced to just about seven years in a Canadian jail.
Not lengthy after beginning his sentence, nonetheless, the Canadians launched him from jail particularly so be could possibly be extradited to Tampa, Florida, to face federal costs within the US.
As Chester Wisniewski put it in our March 2022 podcast on the subject:
Sebastien is briefly “on mortgage” to the People, to allow them to punish him, however when he comes again, he nonetheless has to face his sentence right here in Canada.
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Conviction and sentencing
Again in July 2022, Vachon-Desjardins determined to plead responsible within the US, along with his plea doc noting:
On or about January 27 and 28, 2021, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police executed search warrants at Vachon-Desjardins’ house and on secure deposit packing containers held by Vachon-Desjardins at Nationwide Financial institution, Gatineau, Quebec.
Throughout these searches, regulation enforcement seized, amongst different belongings , all bitcoin contained within the defendant’s BTC Pockets 3Pxki6pFFKC12YSn8JtDs3ZrEg3pFTHnHd.
This seized bitcoin was derived primarily from ransom funds paid by victims of NetWalker Ransomware assaults.
The quantity seized was just below BTC 720, value about US$23 million in early 2021, and nonetheless value about US$14 million at present.
There was a lot extra criminality to which Vachon-Desjardins admitted, nonetheless, with the courtroom doc happening to say:
Regulation enforcement recognized and seized copies of the server that operated because the backend, or internal-facing, server of the NetWalker Tor Panel and the NetWalker Weblog. This server contained detailed transactional info as to the NetWalker builders and associates. The transactional data revealed that in the course of the course of the conspiracy, roughly 100 associates had been lively, and victims had paid roughly 5058 bitcoin in ransoms (an approximate whole of US$40 million based mostly on the worth of bitcoin on the time of every transaction).
These data additionally tied Vachon-Desjardins to the profitable extortion of roughly 1864 bitcoin in ransoms (an approximate whole of US$21.5 million based mostly on the worth of bitcoin on the time of every transaction) from dozens of sufferer corporations internationally, together with [a victim in Tampa, Florida].
This apparently identifies Vachon-Desjardins as a really important NetWalker affiliate, accountable for greater than 35% of ransom cash extorted total, and thus presumably additionally being accountable for about one-third of the group’s assaults.
He’s now been sentenced, with the Tampa Bay Occasions reporting that he’ll spend 20 years in a US jail.
In keeping with the Tampa Bay Occasions, the decide within the case famous:
You have got one of many worst circumstances I’ve ever seen. That is Jesse James meets the twenty first century. [… This] is unhealthy stuff. If you happen to had gone to trial [i.e. had not pleaded guilty], I’d have given you life.
When he’s completed his US jail sentence, Vachon-Desjardins can be returned north of the border to to complete his 7-stretch in Canada.
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