7 Russians accused of hacking athletes
Spies allegedly sought revenge for drug scandal
WASHINGTON – Seven Russian GRU intelligence officers were charged with hacking computers associated with 250 athletes and anti-doping sports organizations in the USA and around the world, Justice Department officials announced Thursday.
According to the 41-page indictment, the criminal activity was retaliation against people and organizations who revealed Russia’s doping program for its athletes – revelations that led to the stripping of dozens of Olympic medals from Russian athletes and a ban on that country’s athletes from the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The hacking that began in December 2014 and continued until at least May 2018 intruded into computers and networks of U.S. citizens and corporations and international corporations and their workers, the officials said.
“In other words, Russia cheated,” said Scott Brady, U.S. attorney for western Pennsylvania. “They cheated, they got caught, they were banned from the Olympics, they were mad and they retaliated. In retaliating, they broke the law, so they are criminals.”
The conspiracy aimed to publicize stolen information as part of an influence and disinformation campaign designed to undermine the efforts of international antidoping organizations, according to the charges.
Another goal was to damage the reputations of athletes around the world by falsely claiming that they used banned or performance-enhancing drugs, officials said.
“All of this was done to undermine those organizations’ efforts to ensure the integrity of the Olympic and other games,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security.
Other targets of the alleged conspiracy included a chemical weapons lab in The Hague, Netherlands, and Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear-power company in Pennsylvania that provides nuclear fuel to Ukraine.
The charges were related to an intelligence operation against Russian agents in The Hague attempting to breach the cybersecurity of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which Dutch and United Kingdom officials announced Thursday. The prime ministers of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement condemning Russia’s behavior.
Twelve Russian GRU military intelligence officers and 13 Russian nationals and businesses were indicted this year as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of interference in the 2016 election. GRU is an acronym for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Though the latest charges are not tied to Mueller’s investigation, some of the same GRU officers are charged, Demers said.
Besides 250 athletes in 30 countries, targets included the U.S. AntiDoping Agency headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and the World Anti-Doping Agency in Montreal; the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports in Ottawa, Canada.
The group known as Fancy Bears’ Hack Team targeted athletes and antidoping officials to reveal personal health information, according to Eric Welling, the FBI’s deputy assistant director for the cyberdivision.
All the officers were charged with conspiring to access computers without authorization, wire fraud and money laundering for buying computer equipment with cryptocurrencies. Five of the officers were charged with aggravated identify theft. One, Ivan Segeyevich Yermakov, 32, was charged with wire fraud for allegedly targeting Westinghouse employees for hacking through a technique called “spearphishing.”
“They cheated, they got caught, they were banned from the Olympics, they were mad and they retaliated.”
Scott Brady, U.S. attorney for western Pennsylvania