Armenia has held a Russian tourist named Aleksandr Ermakov in a detention center since June 28, on a U.S. extradition request for a REvil ransomware suspect named Aleksandr Ermakov.
His wife, Maria Yurova, told REN TV that border officers pulled him out of the departure hall at Yerevan's Zvartnots airport, held up a phone with a photo of him off his VKontakte page, and walked him into a side room. His lawyers say Washington has the wrong man.
The Ermakov the U.S. wants is Aleksandr Gennadievich Ermakov, sanctioned by Australia, the US, and the UK in January 2024 for stealing 9.7 million records from Medibank Private, one of Australia's largest private health insurers, and dumping some on the dark web.
He is also serving a two-year Russian sentence that bars him from leaving the country, according to TASS and to case files two Russian outlets say they have read. The man in the Armenian cell, his lawyers say, is Aleksandr Yuryevich Ermakov, from Omsk, a former prison-service lawyer who does not speak English.
Ermakov is accused of taking part in Sodinokibi/REvil attacks from roughly April 2019 to July 12, 2021, with more than 1,000 victims among private companies, law enforcement, government offices, schools, and hospitals, some in the Northern District of Texas.
