A 30-year old Romanian man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leveraging the Netwalker ransomware to extort money from victims, the US Department of Justice announced on Thursday.
Daniel Christian Hulea, of Jucu de Mijloc, Cluj, Romania, was arrested by the Romanian police in July 2023 and extradited to the US, where he was taken to charged and ultimately pleaded guilty to computer fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy earlier this year.
“According to court documents, Hulea admitted to participating in a conspiracy to use a sophisticated form of ransomware known as NetWalker. NetWalker ransomware has been used to target hundreds of victims all over the world, including companies, municipalities, hospitals, law enforcement, emergency services, school districts, colleges, and universities,” the US DoJ said.
“NetWalker attacks specifically targeted the healthcare sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking advantage of the global crisis to extort victims. As part of his plea agreement, Hulea admitted to using NetWalker to obtain approximately 1,595 bitcoin in ransom payments for himself and a co-conspirator, valued at approximately $21,500,000 at the time of the payments.”
Aside from his prison sentence, Hulea has been ordered to forfeit the money “earned” through criminal activity, as well as his interests in an Indonesian company and associated luxury resort property under construction in Bali, Indonesia. Finally, he must also pay $14,991,580.01 in restitution.
The rise and fall of NetWalker
The Netwalker ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) outfit did a lot of damage in 2020.
In early 2021, a coordinated international law enforcement action disrupted the group’s dark web site used by NetWalker ransomware affiliates to provide payment instructions and communicate with victims.
At the same time, another affiliate – Canadian national Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins – was indicted for using the ransomware to obtain over $27.6 million form victims. He was sentenced in late 2022, also to 20 years in prison.