Basketball player arrested for alleged ransomware ties freed in Russia-France prisoner swap

Daniil Kasatkin, a 26-year-old Russian basketball player, was freed in a prisoner exchange between Russia and France after being accused of ties to a ransomware gang. He was detained in June at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and held in French extradition custody following a US warrant alleging he acted as a negotiator for an unnamed ransomware gang that attacked about 900 organisations between 2020 and 2022.

He was charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and while the gang itself was not named, the Justice Department previously said the now-defunct Conti ransomware group attacked more than 900 victims worldwide, according to The Record.

The exchange involved French researcher Laurent Vinatier, who had been sentenced to three years in prison after Russian officials accused him of violating “foreign agent” laws, with a video shared by Russian state news outlet TASS showing Kasatkin emerging from a plane used in the swap. Read more at The Record.