On Tuesday January 9, 24, a Seattle court sentenced Sébastien Raoult from the Vosges region of France to three years’ imprisonment and the repayment of five million dollars for corporate hacking.
He finally “pleaded guilty”, an American procedure that allows him to negotiate his sentence. Sébastien Raoult, a 23-year-old French hacker, was being prosecuted by the American justice system for hacking, with others, some sixty companies, pillaging their strategic data and selling it on the darknet.
The “guilty plea” option
Sébastien Raoult was arrested in Morocco in May 2022 and extradited to the United States eight months later, despite the opposition of his parents and numerous supporters of the “Justice for Sébastien” collective, who saw in this former computer science student an innocent man wrongly accused.
In the end, given the American legal system, he faced a 116-year prison sentence if he continued to deny his involvement in the hacker network. He therefore opted for a “guilty plea”, acknowledging his fault.
I understand my mistakes and I want to put them behind me,” said the defendant, according to a court statement. No more hacking”.
Identity theft
The young Vosgian was accused by the FBI of being a member of a highly effective group of hackers, the “ShinyHunters”, who operate on the darknet. But Sébastien Raoult’s father has always maintained that his son was the victim of identity theft.
The U.S. justice system doesn’t believe this, and believes that the Frenchman is hiding behind the pseudonym Sezyo Kaisen. The hackers stole sensitive data from major corporations, threatening to disclose it unless a ransom was paid.
Sébastien Raoult, an individual suspected to be a member of ShinyHunters group, has been sentenced to 3 years in prison. He initially faced 29 years, but plead guilty and managed to get it down to 3 years
He also has a fine of $5,000,000https://t.co/l5EamESywB
— vx-underground (@vxunderground) January 9, 2024