Sébastien Raoult arrested this Wednesday, December 4, upon landing at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. The French hacker was sentenced to 3 years in prison in the United States, before reduced sentences. In the meantime, an investigation into another case had been opened in France.
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The Paris prosecutor's office indicates that Sébastien Raoult, originally from the Vosges, was arrested following an arrest warrant. The 23-year-old man must be presented to an investigating judge, before possible indictment. An investigation was opened in October 2022, by the cybercrime section of the Paris public prosecutor's office.
She wears “on the sale in 2021-2022 of software allowing to scan the vulnerabilities of mail servers (SMTP) of the company Amazon Web Service (AWS) then to fraudulently take control of them“, specified the public prosecutor.
Despite this arrest by the air and border police at the Paris airport, his relatives are still happy with his return to France.
In Épinal (Vosges), the news of his return to France was awaited by his father Paul Raoult. “It's a great relief, although I would have preferred to hug him when he came out. He was arrested on his arrival at Roissy airport, by the air and border police, following an arrest warrant issued by a judge of the Paris court. The air and border police called me to tell me that he was with them, and that they were going to transfer him to the Paris court.“, he confided to France 3 Lorraine. The sixty-year-old then indicated that he did not know the exact reasons for this arrest.
Sébastien Raoult's lawyer, Philippe Ohayon, adds that his client's family was “relieved at her arrival in France, despite this umpteenth adventure“. “The American judge clearly understood that Sébastien Raoult was not the bad hacker as initially presented“, he adds.
As part of this investigation opened in France, the Paris prosecutor's office specifies that “access to these compromised servers was resold via Telegram encrypted messaging to users thus having access to mass email sending servers for ready-to-use 'phishing' campaigns“. It was entrusted to the brigade for the fight against cybercrime (BL2C), within the Paris police headquarters.
Previously, Sébastien Raoult was convicted last January in the United States. A three-year prison sentence was imposed on him, after pleading guilty to computer fraud and aggravated identity theft. He had been accused of having “hacked and resold the data of around sixty companies“, as our article indicates. The Vosges must also reimburse five million dollars for the losses caused to the victim firms. The man finally returned to France this Wednesday morning, after having obtained reduced sentences.
READ ALSO ► Cybercrime: Three years in prison and five million dollars to repay, for Sébastien Raoult, in the United States
This incarceration in the United States then followed an extradition, after he was arrested in Morocco in May 2022. Sébastien Raoult had at the time established himself in this country for a few months.
