Hacker on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for a Decade Faces Up to 40 Years in Prison

Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov led at least two gangs that stole millions of dollars.

In 2020, he launched a ransomware attack that virtually paralyzed a US hospital.

The FBI is one of the leading investigative agencies in the field of cybercrime. As explained on its website, this institution has dedicated squads and even a modern operations center that operates 24 hours a day to track incidents and find their perpetrators. However, many cybercriminals are quite successful in evading the efforts to capture them.

Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov has been one of them. This 37-year-old Ukrainian-born man was on the FBI’s most wanted list for nearly a decade for leading a cybercriminal gang that stole millions of dollars. Although he was able to evade capture for years, he was arrested in Switzerland in 2022 and later extradited to the United States. This week he pleaded guilty to two charges and faces up to 40 years in prison.

Penchukov awaits sentencing in US custody

Court documents state that Penchukov, also known as ‘tank’ and ‘father,’ began his cybercrime career in 2009. From that year on, they explain, he distributed malware known as Zeus that infected thousands of computers. The Ukrainian’s goal was to…