Suspected Russian hacker reportedly detained in Thailand, faces possible US extradition
The Russian Embassy in Thailand said it is seeking access to a Russian citizen reportedly detained on the resort island of Phuket at the request of the United States over suspected cybercrimes.
“At the moment, we are clarifying the circumstances of this case and working with the Thai side to arrange consular access,” embassy representative Ilya Ilyin told Russia’s state news agency TASS.
Thai police confirmed to TASS that the Russian national was arrested on Phuket in coordination with U.S. authorities and later transferred to Bangkok. The suspect is being held pending extradition to the U.S., according to local media reports.
Earlier this week, local outlet The Phuket Express reported that police had detained a 35-year-old “world-famous hacker” who had been hiding in Thailand after launching cyberattacks on government agencies in Europe and the U.S.
Authorities have not disclosed the suspect’s name, alias or the specific crimes he is accused of. Thai police said they seized laptops, mobile phones, and digital wallets during a raid carried out with assistance from the FBI.
The FBI declined to comment.
According to local reports, the man entered Thailand in late October and was traced to a hotel in a coastal district of Phuket.
Russian independent outlet Vot Tak reported that among the Russian military hackers wanted by the FBI, only one matches the age provided by Thai police — Aleksey Lukashev, a GRU officer accused of taking part in the 2016 U.S. election interference campaign.
Lukashev, listed as a senior lieutenant in Russia’s military intelligence agency, was among 12 GRU agents indicted in the U.S. for hacking political organizations and leaking stolen data as part of the group tracked as APT28, Fancy Bear and BlueDelta.
It remains unclear whether Lukashev is the same individual now detained in Thailand.
The arrest follows a series of recent detentions of Russian nationals in Thailand accused of cyber offenses. In February, Thai police arrested four Russians wanted in Switzerland and the U.S. for allegedly deploying ransomware against 17 Swiss companies and demanding multimillion-dollar payments.
Daryna Antoniuk
is a reporter for Recorded Future News based in Ukraine. She writes about cybersecurity startups, cyberattacks in Eastern Europe and the state of the cyberwar between Ukraine and Russia. She previously was a tech reporter for Forbes Ukraine. Her work has also been published at Sifted, The Kyiv Independent and The Kyiv Post.