Lawyer of the Russian 'King of Spam' claims that conditions in United States prison are torturous
The conditions of detention of Russian citizen Peter Levashov, who is charged with cyber-fraud and was extradited from Spain to the US, can be called "torture", said Levashov’s lawyer Igor Litvak in a conversation with Izvestia newspaper.
The lawyer, according to the newspaper, said that his client was forbidden from calling family members, going out for walks, communicating with other prisoners, taking a shower and reading newspapers. Levashov was not allowed to go to a local store and was not given a pillow and a towel.
"He could barely beg for toothpaste and a toothbrush. Peter is forced to sit in the cell 24 hours a day without being told why," the defender added. "This is illegal and I would call it torture," he stressed.
The programmer's wife, Maria confirmed to the newspaper that she could not get in touch with Levashov since his extradition to the United States from Spain. "The last eight months in Spain, Peter was also in prison. This nightmare is now continuing," she said. Maria added that she would contact the Russian Embassy in the United States on this matter.
On February 2, Spanish police reported that it had transferred custody of the Russian citizen arrested in April 2017 to the US Marshals Service. The law enforcement authorities did not disclose his name.
The police clarified that this Russian citizen had controlled a botnet or network of bots called Kelihos, which infected computers with malicious software that allowed the creator to gain control. Kelihos was used not only for identity theft but also for spam and virus dissemination, including ransomware. Spanish authorities assert that this network had been functioning for over ten years.
In April 2017, Levashov's wife was informed that her husband was detained at the request of the United States. She said that the police detained him in an apartment in Barcelona, where the family arrived for vacation. US authorities, according to her, suspected the Russian programmer of involvement in hacking attacks, including those related to the elections in the United States.
In October 2017, the court in Saint-Petersburg arrested Levashov in absentia for hacking and for blocking information on the website of one of the city’s medical institutions. According to the investigators, between May 15 and June 10, 2014, he committed "unauthorized access to information," acting "for personal gain."
According to the British organization Spamhaus, which monitors spam propagating, the programmer is one of the top ten world leaders in the proliferation of spam messages.