Alleged JabberZeus Crime Gang Leader Arrested in Switzerland

The Swiss Police have arrested Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov in Geneva under the accusation that he's one of the leaders of the JabberZeus crime gang.

Penchukov's brushes with the law date back years. The US Department of Justice charged Penchukov in 2012 after he allegedly used a malware named Zeus to steal money and private information. According to a BleepingComputer report, he's also allegedly the mastermind or at least a cofounder, of the Maze, Egregor and Sekhmetran somware operations that have been very active in the past.

Authorities arrested Penchukov in October when he returned to the country, and now they've already agreed to extradite him to the US. In 2014, the DOJ indicted him and others for his alleged role in the JabberZeus attacks.

"By order of the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) and based on an extradition request from the USA, a Ukrainian national was arrested in the Canton of Geneva on 23 October 2022 and detained pending extradition," Swiss authorities told BleepingComputer.

"After completion of the formal extradition procedure, the FOJ has decided to grant his extradition to the USA on 15 November 2022. The decision of the FOJ may be appealed at the Swiss Criminal Federal Court, respectively at the Swiss Supreme Court."

Penchukov is not the only suspect arrested. Yevhen Kulibaba and Yuriy Konovalenko, two of his Ukrainian partners, were arrested, sentenced to prison and incarcerated in May 2015.

Not surprisingly, Penchukov's connections in Ukraine allowed him to evade arrest for many years. He was, in fact, about to be arrested all the way back in 2010 but managed to elude capture.