Sébastien Raoult once again in the sights of justice, “yet another adventure”, according to his defense. The French hacker, convicted in January in the United States, was arrested on Wednesday when he landed in France, this time as part of a French judicial investigation, indicated the Paris prosecutor's office, requested by AFP. He is suspected of being involved in the sale of software capable of “fraudulently taking control” of the email servers of a branch of the Amazon group, to propagate phishing campaigns.
Arrested on a warrant, an order given to the police to bring an accused person to justice, he must be presented to an investigating judge with a view to possible indictment, said the prosecution. .
Originally from Épinal, in eastern France, Sébastien Raoult was sentenced last January in the United States to three years' imprisonment. After having long declared himself innocent, the 22-year-old young man finally pleaded guilty to computer fraud and aggravated identity theft across the Atlantic.
He then promised to no longer engage in “piracy”, saying he was determined to “put this story behind (him) “. He must also reimburse five million dollars for losses caused to the victim firms. He returned to France on Wednesday morning after obtaining reduced sentences.
VideoUnited States: French hacker sentenced to 3 years in prison and $5 million fine
This time, he is being investigated in a judicial investigation, opened in October 2022 by the anti-cybercrime section of the Paris public prosecutor's office. The investigations concern “the sale in 2021-2022 of software making it possible to scan the vulnerabilities of mail servers (SMTP) from the company Amazon Web Service (AWS)”, a cloud platform offered by the American giant of e-commerce, “and then fraudulently take control of it,” said the public prosecutor.
“Access to these compromised servers was resold via Telegram encrypted messaging to users thus having access to servers for sending mass emails for mass email campaigns. phishing ready for use,” detailed the prosecution. Investigations are entrusted to the cybercrime brigade (BL2C), within the Paris police headquarters.
Sébastien Raoult's lawyer, Philippe Ohayon, indicated that his client's family was “relieved at his arrival in France, despite this umpteenth incident”. “The American judge clearly understood that Sébastien Raoult was not the bad hacker as initially presented,” he told AFP.
The hacker was extradited to the United States from Morocco, where he was arrested and imprisoned. His family and his French defense had tried by all means to have him extradited to France, hoping that he would be tried there and not across the Atlantic, even going so far as to refer the issue to the Human Rights Committee. UN to oppose his being handed over to the United States.
