'Don't Travel Abroad' Russia warns Hackers

The Russian government has warned hackers not to set foot outside its borders, as they risk being kidnapped by US authorities and taken to the US to face legal proceedings.

The Russian Foreign Ministry last week advised citizens, especially those suspected of committing crimes by the United States, not to leave Russia for countries with extradition treaties with the US, Wired reports.

"Practice shows that the trials of those who were actually kidnapped and taken to the United States are biased, based on shaky evidence" and are biased against Russians, warns the notice.

Recently, several suspected Russian hackers have been seized by US authorties while traveling overseas.

In June, Alexander Panin, suspected of a $5 million online banking scam, was arrested in the Dominican Republic and extradited to the US to face charges.

Another Russian national, Maxim Chuhareva, was arrested in Costa Rica earlier this year on suspicion of being involved in running an online payment system used for illicit transactions.

Russian Vladimir Drinkman, one of the alleged hackers most wanted by the US, was arrested during a trip to the Netherlands on a US warrant dating to 2009. He is suspected of the theft of 160 million credit card numbers from payment processors and US retailers like T.J. Maxx, in the biggest cyber fraud in US history. Albert Gonzalez, who was convicted of his role in the fraud in the US, was given a 20-year prison sentence in 2010.

Two other Russian suspects in the case remain at large. The crimes are believed to have resulted in losses totalling $300m from targeted companies.

For about two decades, Russia has been a safe haven for hackers and cyber fraudsters targeting the UK.

Hackers offer their services on dedicated Russian language forums, and clients can commission anything from a cyber attack on a rival's website to a Trojan program to steal private information.

It is believed that Russian authorities are willing to turn a blind eye to hacking that is targeted abroad, and enlist hackers for their own cyber espionage programmes.

"They have been doing this in Russia for many years now," Misha Glenny, an expert and author on cybercrime told Wired.

"Russian law enforcement and the FSB (Federal Security Service) in particular have a very good idea of what is going on and they are monitoring it but as long as the fraud is restricted to other parts of the world they don't care."

In the absence of an extradition treaty with Moscow, American authorities have had to go to extra lengths to apprehend Russia-based cyber criminals.

In 2000 they set up a fake company, Invita, in Seattle and invited two Russian hackers for interviews. FBI agents posed as managers, and when the interview ended, arrested the pair.

Earlier this year, Russia offered former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden asylum after he revealed details of a mass covert web surveillance operation undertaken by the US National Security Agency, making the prospect of legal co-operation between the countries even more unlikely.