“(Hacker Alexsey) Belan’s criminal conduct ... did not stop the FSB officers who used him to break into Yahoo networks.”

as part of an intelligence collection operation and for-profit scheme to “line the pockets” of all involved, federal prosecutors alleged.

“The defendants targeted Yahoo accounts of Russian and U.S. government officials, including cyber security, diplomatic and military personnel,’’ Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord said at a Justice Department briefing in Washington. “They also targeted Russian journalists … employees of financial services and other commercial entities.”

McCord said the FSB agents worked with hackers Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov to breach the computers of American companies that provide email and Internet-related services and to “steal information, including information about individual users and the private contents of their accounts.”

Belan, indicted twice before in the U.S. for hacking into e-commerce sites as part of intrusions that victimized millions, has been listed as one of the FBI’s mostwanted cyber criminals for three years.

“Belan’s notorious criminal conduct and a pending Interpol Red Notice (a global arrest warrant) did not stop the FSB officers who, instead of detaining him, used him to break into Yahoo networks,’’ McCord said.

The four suspects are charged with computer hacking, economic espionage and other criminal offenses. All but one, Karim Beratov, remain at large. Beratov was arrested Tuesday in Canada by Toronto police, and authorities are expected to seek his extradition to the U.S. There is no extradition agreement between the U.S. and Russia, making the U.S. prosecution of at least the two FSB officers extremely doubtful.

U.S. officials described the collaboration of the Russian government officials with criminal hackers as an increasingly alarming criminal model aimed at compromising individual privacy, economic and security interests.

Most troubling, McCord said, was that the two Russian FSB officials worked for the Russian intelligence unit known as the Center for Information Security or “Center 18,” which is the primary point of contact for the FBI in Moscow.

FBI Executive Assistant Director Paul Abbate said Wednesday that the involvement of Russian officials from Center 18 now represents “a great test” of future U.S.-Russian law enforcement