MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - In a multinational operation, more than $24 million in cryptocurrency was seized from the Russian leader of a group of cyber criminals who developed and deployed the Qakbot malware.
A federal indictment was charged against Rustam Rafailevich Gallyamov, 48, of Moscow, as part of an ongoing multinational investigation involving the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Canada to combat cybercrime.
Gallyamov's bot network was crippled by FBI and its international partners in 2023, but he continued to deploy alternative methods to make his malware available to criminal cyber gangs conducting ransomware attacks against innocent victims globally, said Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office.
According to court documents, Gallyamov started developing, deploying, and controlling the Qakbot malware in 2008. From 2019, he used the Qakbot malware to infect thousands of victim computers around the world in order to establish a network, or 'botnet,' of infected computers.
Once Gallyamov gained access to victim computers, he provided access to co-conspirators who infected the computers with ransomware, including Prolock, Dopplepaymer, Egregor, REvil, Conti, Name Locker, Black Basta, and Cactus. In exchange, Gallyamov was paid a portion of the ransoms received from ransomware victims.
After the disruption and takedown of the Qakbot botnet, Gallyamov and his co-conspirators continued their criminal activities. Instead of a botnet, they used different tactics, including 'spam bomb' attacks on victim companies, to trick its employees into granting access to computer systems. The indictment alleges that Gallyamov orchestrated spam bomb attacks against victims in the United States as recently as January 2025. It also alleges that Gallyamov and his co-conspirators deployed Black Basta and Cactus ransomware on victim computers.
On April 25, pursuant to a seizure warrant, the FBI had seized additional illicit proceeds from Gallyamov, including more than 30 bitcoin and $700,000 of USDT tokens, the Department of Justice said in a press release. The Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the Central District of California against all of the illicit proceeds seized from Gallyamov, worth more than $24 million, in order to forfeit and return them to victims.
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