Accused Ancaster, Ont. Yahoo hacker Karim Baratov is waiving his Canadian rights and forgoing extradition in order to go straight to the United States to face prosecution.
His lawyer said that waiving extradition “is the quickest route to the U.S. so we can continue our discussions there.”
Baratov was arrested at his Ancaster home on March 14 after U.S. authorities charged him with aggravated identity theft and conspiring to commit fraud, in connection with a hacking scheme allegedly organized by Russian intelligence agents. American authorities want Baratov, a Canadian citizen born in Kazakhstan, extradited to the U.S. to face the charges.
His lawyer maintains Baratov is “a small fish” in the whole scheme, said to have involved breaching about 500 million Yahoo email accounts used for political or financial gain.
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