Izvestia found Russian "hackers", for whose capture the FBI promises $11M

Two Russians, whom the US authorities have put on the wanted list and accused of a series of hacker attacks, have declared their innocence in an exclusive interview with Izvestia. We are talking about Amin Stigal, for whose capture the FBI promises $10 million, and his father Timur Stigal, whose reward the US Secret Service has set at $1 million.

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According to the FBI, since December 2020, Amin Stigal, in coordination with employees of the GRU of Russia, participated in the hacking of Ukrainian government resources, as well as critical infrastructure facilities in a number of Western countries. Timur Stigal is charged with 23 episodes of trading in US citizens' bank card data and extortion.

At the moment, Timur Stigal's family lives in Saratov, Izvestia found out and talked to them.

"I was shocked and confused. At first, I thought it might be due to the fact that I used cheats (software to circumvent restrictions in computer games. — Ed.). But it turned out that everything was much more serious. I was accused of something I didn't do," Amin commented on the wanted notice.

Amin Stigal said that he does not have the skills of a hacker and can even hardly reinstall Windows on a computer. Timur Stigal believes that his son has become a victim of the special services' hunt for him.

"As I understand it, it was the American side that decided to attack me from different sides so that I wouldn't mess around. I don't know why they chose this method of attacking me — through my son, by faking the facts about his alleged involvement in criminal activities," Timur said.

Timur Stigal himself admitted to Izvestia that he participated in some non-public operations against foreign intelligence services, and "annoyed the Americans." In particular, according to him, in 2016, after studying data on the activities of Qatar's largest bank, QNB, leaked to the network by hackers, he found information about the banking operations of Western intelligence officers.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Secret ties: Izvestia found "hackers", for whose capture the FBI promises $ 11 million