Federal authorities extradited a Latvian man from Poland to charge him in a “scareware” and hacking criminal case, which targeted readers of the Minneapolis Star Tribune website, the Department of Justice announced this week.
Peteris Sahurovs, a 28-year-old man who at one time was No. 5 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for cybercriminals, allegedly pilfered more than $2 million from the Minneapolis Star Tribune‘s readers.
Creating a fake advertising agency, Sahurovs and his cohorts purchased online advertising space from the Minneapolis Star Tribune for a bogus American hotel chain, according to the indictment. After the ad began to run, the group changed the ad’s computer code to infect startribune.com visitors with malware.