FBI Takes Down $24 Million Crypto Cache from Russian Malware Mastermind

The US Department of Justice (doj) submitted a civil confiscation complaint to seize more than $ 24 million of cryptocurrency associated with Rusam Rafailevich Gallyamov, a Russian citizen accused of providing the development and distribution of Qakbot Malware programs.

According to press release On May 22nd, the Gallyamov Ministry played a major role in publishing Qakbot as part of a wider electronic crime operation that has suffered computers worldwide and enables ransom attacks.

From the publication of harmful programs to global ransom attacks

Federal prosecutors claim that Galllyamov, who lives in Moscow, runs the Botnet infrastructure behind Qakbot, an advanced part of the harmful programs that were first published in 2008. Magistical programs were used to connect computers, and then provide access to joint campaigns, who executed Ransomware tools that use variables such as reference, Conti,

In contrast, it was reported that Gallyamov received a share of ransom revenue. The Ministry of Justice confirmed that this seizure reflects a continuous international effort that includes law enforcement agencies from the United States, Europe and Canada to disrupt the networks of the Internet.

According to the accusation of the Ministry of Justice, Gallyamov’s electronic operations intensified from 2019 on the rookie, as Qakbot was used to infiltrate thousands of systems and build wide robots. Once prejudice, these systems were delivered to the ransom operators.

In August 2023, the United States -led multinationals team disrupted the Qakbot network successfully and extracted many of the plans associated with the scheme, including 170 BTC and millions in Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC. Despite this removal, the Ministry of Justice claims that Gallyamov and its partners continued to target victims using alternative methods.

Details of the latest complaint of the Ministry of Justice how the accused turned the tactics after the disruption of 2023, including employing the “random post bomb” techniques that deceived the employees in opening access to the internal systems. General prosecutors confirm that this latest approach allowed the spread of the ransom to continue in 2025.

According to these attacks, these attacks included the use of Black Basta and Cactus Ransomware to target victims in the United States. As part of the ongoing investigation, the FBI carried out another seizure on April 25, 2025, and recovered more than 30 BTC and more than $ 700,000 in Stablecoins.

International coordination and recovery efforts of the Ministry of Justice

The civil confiscation complaint of the Ministry of Justice aims to make the formal nature of more than $ 24 million in illegal encryption revenues, with the intention of returning these funds to the victims. This effort confirms a global coordinated campaign that included the offices of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, Miluki, Europe, and cyber security departments from France, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries.

The Ministry of Justice has strengthened this cooperation to enable the definition and disturbance of Gallyamov operations. American lawyers assistant from the central province in California and officials from the Crime and Intellectual Property Department at the Ministry of Justice.

In general observations, officials of the Ministry of Justice and the Federal Investigation Office repeated their commitment to dismantling the infrastructure of global cybercrime and using all available legal tools including the indictment, confiscation procedures, and international law enforcement cooperation to hold the perpetrators accountable and compensate the victims. American lawyer Bill Essly said to the central region of California:

A confiscation against more than $ 24 million in virtual assets also indicates the Ministry of Justice’s commitment to seizing the illegal assets of criminals in order to compensate the victims in the end.

A distinctive image created with Dall-E, the tradingView chart

Editing process For Bitcoinist, it is focused on providing accurate, accurate and non -biased content. We support strict resource standards, and each page is subject to a diligent review by our team of senior technology experts and experienced editors. This process guarantees the integrity of our content, importance and value of our readers.