U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement today at a news conference at the Justice Department to announce actions “to prosecute Russian criminal activity.” He also said that the United States and its allies had foiled a massive malware attack that Russia intended to launch internationally, causing an unprecedented shutdown of the Internet and causing tens of billions of dollars in damage worldwide. “Our message to those who continue to allow the Russian regime through their criminal behavior is this: It does not matter how far you travel on your yacht. It does not matter how well you hide your assets. It does not matter how cleverly you write your malware or hide your internet activity. “The justice department will use every tool available to find you, disrupt your conspiracies and hold you accountable,” Garland said. Charges of conspiracy have been filed against Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, who had previously been punished by US sanctions for spreading Russian misinformation. Garland said it was “one of the main sources of funding for the Russians promoting autonomy in Crimea and providing material support to the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.” “Following US sanctions, Malofeyev sought to circumvent sanctions by using conspiracies to gain access to and direct media across Europe.” Garland said the United States had seized millions of dollars from an account at a US financial institution, which the indictment said was a product of Malofeyev’s breach of sanctions. Meanwhile, the $ 90 million Tango magnate, owned by Russian oligarch Victor Vekselberg, a close ally of Putin, was seized in Mallorca on Monday. Vekselberg was sanctioned in 2018 for money laundering and again last month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The malware attack was largely aimed at small businesses with the aim of spreading a massive, denial-of-service attack aimed at disrupting the internet internationally and causing at least $ 10 billion in damage. “The global botnet [was] “It is controlled by the Russian military intelligence service, commonly known as the GRU,” Garland said, noting that the Russian government had recently used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets. “Fortunately, we were able to shut down this botnet before it could be used. Thanks to our close cooperation with international partners, we were able to detect the infection of thousands of network hardware devices. “We can then turn off GRU control on these devices before the botnet can become a weapon.”
