RIA Novosti reports that the US prosecutor's office believes that the Russian, Mark Vartanian, extradited from Norway to the US, developed a virus that caused damage of up to $ 500 million.

Vartanyan was present yesterday, March 14 at the first court hearing on his case after extradition, held in December 2016. A man is accused of one episode of computer fraud.

The release of the office of the Federal Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia states: "The Russian citizen Mark Vartanyan, also known as Kolypto, allegedly designed, improved and supported the Citadel malware ... According to industry estimates, Citadel infected about 11 million computers around the world The world and caused damage more than 500 million dollars ".

At the same time, federal prosecutor John Horn said extradition is a good example of international law enforcement cooperation.

Horn said: "The role, allegedly played by this man (Vartanyan) in the development and improvement of the Citadel, caused huge financial damage to individuals and financial institutions around the world".

From his words it follows that Vartanyan was a "significant player" in the hacker community.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, Vartanyan was creating the program in 2012-2013, living in Ukraine, and then continued to work in Norway in 2014.

As it became known earlier, in September 2015, a 22-year-old Russian citizen Dmitry Belorossov was sentenced in Georgia to 4.5 years in prison for installing Citadel on victim computers. It is alleged that the man downloaded a copy of the virus and with her help created a network of seven thousand infected computers.