27 years for cybercrime

SEATTLE: A federal judge has handed down the longest sentence ever imposed in the US for a cybercrime case to the son of a member of the Russian Parliament convicted of hacking into more than 500 US businesses and stealing millions of credit card numbers, which he then sold on special websites.

Roman Seleznev was sentenced to 27 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $170 million in restitution to the business and banks that were the victims of his multi-year scheme.

Seleznev asked US District Judge Richard Jones for leniency. After sentencing, Seleznev’s lawyer Igor Litvak read a statement from his client that said the sentence was a political prosecution at a time of strained US-Russian relations.