Smiling for the camera, it is a portrait that any family would be certain to cherish.
Except this is the world’s biggest cyber crime outfit, responsible for cheating Britons out of hundreds of millions of pounds.
The National Crime Agency released yesterday this extraordinary snapshot of Russian crook Maksim Yakubets with his family.
They are said to run the world’s most harmful cyber crime group, appropriately named Evil Corp.
The NCA, Britain’s FBI, has revealed for the first time that the gang is headed by Maksim along with his money-laundering father Viktor, brother Artem, cousins Kirill and Dmitry Slobodskoy plus father-in-law Eduard Benderskiy, a former high-ranking official in the Russian intelligence service, the FSB.
Mastermind Maksim Yakubets (left), Father Viktor Yakubets (centre) and brother Artem Yakubets
Sixteen individuals who were part of Evil Corp, once believed to be the most significant cybercrime threat in the world, have been sanctioned in the UK
Brothers Aleksandr and Sergey Ryzhenkov are part of the list of individuals sanctioned
For more than a decade, multi-millionaire Maksim is said to have targeted thousands of Britons, stealing their life savings by hacking their bank details and undertaking espionage missions on behalf of the Russian state to target Nato countries.
Described as untouchable in Moscow, Maksim regularly films himself doing doughnuts around local police, tyres screeching in his Ferrari or customised Lamborghini supercar with a personalised number plate that means ‘Thief’ in Russian.
The 37-year-old, who has worked for the FSB, is said to live like a king, splashing out on supercars, tiger and lion cubs and splurging more than £250,000 on his wedding. In 2019, a £3.8million US State Department reward – the largest bounty ever offered for a cyber criminal, was placed on his head.
But now the NCA is widening the net, naming the friends and family making millions by intercepting bank transfers of the public plus hundreds of businesses, schools and religious organisations.
Investigators have uncovered photos of the Yakubets clan posing at lavish black-tie events and enjoying holidays. Maksim is said to have started the operation in 2007 from Moscow cafes, employing dozens of people to rinse victims in 43 countries using viruses that are designed not to target anyone in Russia.
Pictured: Denis Gusev, Aleksandr Ryzhenkov, Sergey Ryzhenkov, Artem Yakubets, Kirill Slobodskoy, Dmitriy Slobodskoy, Beyat Ramazanov. These individuals were part of Evil Corp
Pictured Dmitriy Slobodskoy, Maksim Yakubets, Artem Yakubets, Kirill Slobodskoy. These individuals were part of Evil Corp
The National Crime Agency is now naming the friends and family making millions by intercepting bank transfers of the public plus hundreds of businesses, schools and religious organisations
The family business grew to develop relationships with Russia’s intelligence services, the FSB, SVR and GRU through his father-in-law.
Benderskiy worked for the FSB’s secretive ‘Vympel’ unit, which is close to the Kremlin. Yesterday 16 members of Evil Corp were sanctioned in the UK, US and Australia as investigators revealed the web has extorted at least £225million from victims globally. But insiders say the chances of capturing Maksim are small.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: ‘I am making it my mission to target the Kremlin with the full arsenal of sanctions at our disposal.
‘Putin has built a corrupt mafia state with himself at its centre. We must combat this at every turn, and today’s action is just the beginning.
‘Today’s sanctions send a clear message to the Kremlin that we will not tolerate Russian cyber attacks – whether from the state itself or from its cyber-criminal ecosystem.’
