Sébastien Raoult, a 21-year-old from Vosges, is accused by American justice of being part of a group of cybercriminals specializing in the resale of stolen sensitive data. Today, his family is mobilizing to obtain his return to France.
Paul Raoult keeps repeating it to the French media: his son is innocent. Impossible according to him that Sébastien could hack the sites of several large companies, including some Americans like Microsoft, as estimated by the FBI. There is mistake on the person and identity theft.
► To read also: United States: on the internet, phishing scams are soaring
But according to the American authorities, the former computer science student is part of the “ShinyHunters”, a group of hackers known to have stolen more than 200 million confidential data since the spring of 2020. Data then resold on the darknet or returned after ransom payments. Some of these operations would have been carried out by French IP addresses, and more recently Moroccan, all linked to Sébastien Raoult.
Awaiting extradition
The young man was arrested on May 31 at Rabat airport as he was about to return to France. He was the subject of a red notice issued by Interpol at the request of American justice. Since then, he has been imprisoned and awaits extradition to the United States where he faces 116 years in prison.
His family is demanding that he be tried in France. His lawyer has filed a request with the Épinal prosecutor’s office, which has not yet ruled.