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Canadian charged in Yahoo hacking case pleads guilty in US

Canadian charged in Yahoo hacking case pleads guilty in US
November 29, 2017

CALIFORNIA (Reuters) - A Canadian accused by the United States of helping Russian intelligence agents break into email accounts as part of a massive 2014 breach of Yahoo accounts pleaded guilty on Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Karim Baratov pleaded guilty to charges returned by a grand jury in the Northern District of California in February for hacking email accounts and selling the passwords to an agent of Russia’s intelligence agency, the department said in a statement.

Baratov, a 22-year-old Canadian citizen born in Kazakhstan, was arrested in Canada in March at the request of U.S. prosecutors. He later waived his right to fight a request for his extradition to the United States.

The Justice Department announced charges in March against Baratov and three other men, including two officers in Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, for their roles in the 2014 theft of 500 million Yahoo accounts.