The Hague District Court Judge M.E. Groeneveld Stubbe ordered (Google Translate) Tuesday that Vladimir Drinkman first be sent to the US before the Netherlands should even consider a second extradition request made by his home country.
Why? Besides the fact that the US asked first, Russian law forbids extraditing its own citizens, so there is little chance Drinkman would be sent on to face charges in the US. However, Drinkman could conceivably be deported back to Russia, if convicted, once his prison time is complete.
According to a 2013 federal indictment in New Jersey, Drinkman is a “sophisticated hacker, who specialized in penetrating and gaining access to the computer networks of multinational corporations.”
As Ars reported in July 2013, Drinkman, along with four other accomplices, are accused of breaking into private networks of the Nasdaq stock exchange, Citibank, PNC Bank, Heartland Payment Systems, 7-Eleven, JCPenney, Hannaford Brothers, and others. The hacking gang traded text strings that exploited SQL-injection vulnerabilities in the victim companies' websites to obtain login credentials and other sensitive data, then installed malware that gave them persistent backdoor access to the networks.
Drinkman and his cohorts are accused of also partnering with Albert Gonzalez, the American hacker who was involved in the massive TJX breach in 2007. Authorities claim that they pilfered data for more than 160 million credit cards and over $300 million in losses for those companies.
The former Moscow resident has been held in custody in the Netherlands since 2012, where he has been challenging his extradition.
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