Flats and cars belonging to one of the ringleaders of the 2008 cyber-attack on RBS WorldPay, which led to the theft of over $9.4 million, have been auctioned off to compensate the bank, according to local press reports.
Viktor Pleshchuk's two Saint Petersburg flats and two cars raised 10 million roubles ($330,000) at auction, 30% more than their initial valuation, says RIA Novosti, with the money handed over to Royal Bank of Scotland.
Pleshchuk was arrested in his home country of Russia last March after being named as one of eight suspects from Eastern Europe in a US federal grand jury indictment.
US authorities say he and Estonian Sergei Tsurikov were the ringleaders behind the 2008 RBS WorldPay attack, which compromised the encryption used by the processor to protect customer data on payroll debit cards.
Limits on accounts were then raised before counterfeit payroll debit cards were handed over to a network of "cashers" who withdrew over $9 million in less than 12 hours from more than 2100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide, including in the US, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada.
Pleshchuk pleaded guilty last year and agreed to provide prosecutors with information on his accomplices in exchange for a six year suspended sentence and four years of probation.
He was also ordered to pay RBS WorldPay 275 million roubles, meaning the recent auction has made only a small dent in his bill.
Russian hacker pays 10 mln rbls compensation to Royal Bank of Scotland - RIA Novosti