Alleged Gozi Virus Creator Walks Away Free, For Now

On Thursday, the Latvian prosecutor’s office released Deniss “Miami” Calovskis, the man who allegedly helped create the infamous Gozi virus, after the European Court of Human Rights halted his extradition to the US.

In August, the Latvian government voted to send Calovskis to the US to stand trial, despite widespread public support for the 27-year-old suspect. There was some dissent in the cabinet too, with the country’s foreign minister Edgars Rinkevics questioning the need for extradition, and describing the possible 67 year sentence facing Cavlovskis as “disproportionate”.

Extradition on halt

First discovered in early 2007, Gozi was reportedly created by Calovskis, Mihai Paunescu from Romania and Nikita Kuzmin from Russia. It has been used around the world to commit financial fraud, by some estimates infecting at least one million machines.

Once it found its way onto a computer, Gozi pilfered bank account login data, before sending it back to the hackers’ servers. The source code for the Trojan was put on sale in 2009 for around $50,000, with the malware sellers getting a cut of whatever the buyers subsequently made from their illicit activities.

In January, a global effort involving police from the UK, Latvia, Romania, Moldova, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Switzerland and the FBI saw the three charged with fraud and computer-related offences.

Cavlovskis has been in jail since December 2012, but is now free, since the prosecutor’s office doesn’t have any grounds to keep the man incarcerated. He will remain at large until his case goes through the European Court of Human Rights. This process is expected to take around a year.

According to local news portal Delfi.lv, after leaving jail, the alleged hacker held a press conference, wearing a suit with a badge of the Latvian flag on it. He said he was happy about the decision, which recognised his  rights as a citizen.

In an earlier interview with the local media, Calovskis said he has never met his alleged accomplices, doesn’t know anything about Gozi, hasn’t participated in its development and didn’t earn any money through illegal activities. He claims his job is to fix computers and create websites.

As for other suspects in the case – Kuzmin, who was convinced to help the investigation, is already doing time in a US jail, following his arrest in 2010 on separate hacking and fraud charges. With his help, officials detained Paunescu in Romania in November 2012. Extradition proceedings against Putanescu are currently on hold pending an appeal.

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