Overview
- Volkov, 26, who acted as an initial access broker, was sentenced Monday to 81 months in the Southern District of Indiana and must pay at least $9.17 million in restitution.
- Prosecutors said he sold break‑in access to groups including Yanluowang, with FBI evidence drawn from seized chat logs, an Apple iCloud account, cryptocurrency exchange records, and a server used for ransom negotiations.
- Italian police arrested Volkov in Rome in January 2024, and he pleaded guilty in November 2025 after extradition to the United States on consolidated charges from Indiana and Pennsylvania.
- In a separate case, Ilya Angelov, 40, received a 24‑month sentence with a $100,000 fine and a $1.6 million judgment for co‑running the TA551 “Mario Kart” botnet that sold access to infected computers, enabling BitPaymer to hit 72 U.S. companies and extract over $14 million.
- Targeting access sellers and botnet operators goes after the ransomware supply chain, which lets criminals buy ready‑made entry into networks and speed up attacks that often demand payment in cryptocurrency.