Alleged cybercriminal accused of hacking, demanding ransoms arrested in Finland, extradited to Chicago

An alleged member of a criminal cyber hacking group had been extradited to Chicago face federal charges after being arrested in Finland.

In a superseding criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, Peter Stokes, 19 — an alleged member of the hacking group Scattered Spider — was charged with conspiracy, cyber intrusion, and fraud.

Stokes, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Estonia, was arrested by authorities in Finland in April following an Interpol Red Notice. He was extradited to the U.S. last week, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

At an initial court appearance on Tuesday, Stokes was ordered to remain detained in custody until trial.

The complaint against Stokes says Scattered Spider — also known as "Octo Tempest," "UNC3944," and "0ktapus," is a group of cybercriminals that has been involved in more than 100 network hacking incidents, resulting in more than $100 million being handed over as a result of ransomware attacks, and millions of dollars in damage to the victims.

The group has targeted corporations in the U.S. by hacking into employee accounts, encrypting the company's data or moving it to remote servers, and extorting cryptocurrency for the companies to get control of their data back or prevent it from being disseminated.

Stokes is specifically accused of a cyber intrusion against a luxury jewelry retailer in May of last year. Prosecutors said he and likely others from the group breached the retailer's computers, exfiltrated the company's data, and demanded $8 million in cryptocurrency as ransom, prosecutors said.

The retailer's security personnel was able to get the hackers off the company's computer network, and the ransom was not paid, prosecutors said. Still, the retailer lost at least $2 million due to the costs of business disruption and investigating and mitigating the threat, prosecutors said.

The charges are a result of Operation Riptide, an ongoing FBI investigation into cybercrime, cyber-enabled crime, and online fraud. Last year, Americans reported more than $20 billion to cybercrime, up 26% from the year before, prosecutors said.