Hamilton ‘hacker for hire’ Karim Baratov comes home in June, says lawyer
Karim Baratov, the Ancaster man U.S. federal agents called an international hacker for hire," who was arrested at his home in March 2017, will soon be released from a prison in Pennsylvania.
Baratov's lawyer, Amedeo DiCarlo, told The Spectator in an email that Baratov will be back in Canada this June."
He added no further details about his release, but said it has been difficult to communicate with his client lately due to the COVID situation."
After he was extradited to face charges in the U.S., Baratov - 22 years old at the time of his arrest - pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, and eight counts of aggravated identity theft.
He was sentenced in a San Francisco court in May 2018 to five years in a federal prison in connection with a Yahoo security breach that U.S. officials said was orchestrated by Russian spies, and that had compromised thousands of webmail accounts.
U.S. officials said Baratov was paid by Russians agents and hacked more than 80 accounts. His lawyers argued he did not know he had been working for the Russians, and DiCarlo told reporters Baratov had been a small fish" in the scheme.
If he returns in June, it would fit what Baratov predicted in a handwritten letter he posted on his Facebook page in June 2018. He wrote that the U.S. federal judge done me a solid" for the five-year sentence; prosecutors had sought nearly eight years.
In the feds you only do 85 per cent of your sentence," reads Baratov's letter. I already have 15 months in, a little math and boom! Only 36 more months to go."
The judge also fined Baratov US$250,000.
The former Ancaster high school student was born in Kazakhstan - a Central Asian country that shares borders with Russia and China - and in 2007, at age 12, immigrated to Canada with his parents and older sister. The family became Canadian citizens in 2011.
Published reports quoted U.S. officials alleging that Baratov started hacking accounts around 2010," when he was about 15 or 16, and that he earned more than $1.1 million for his role.
Before he was extradited, Baratov told a Hamilton court he had started an online services" company in 2014, and declared $90,000 in business income on his tax return for that first year. In 2015, at 20, he bought a house on Chambers Drive in the Meadowlands.
When he was arrested, police found $31,000 in cash in his house and another $900 in his wallet.
After he was jailed, reports quoted high school classmates who said Baratov had been an introverted teenager, yet tossed around money and drove exotic cars.
In the letter posted on Baratov's Facebook page, he writes of his former classmates: Dudes I either don't know or remember you."
In an email to the Spectator, DiCarlo wrote: (Baratov) has learned some hard lessons but he will turn this knowledge into something positive and prosperously legal no doubt ... I cannot wait to see how the next steps to his journey unfold. I'm sure he will share his knowledge to anyone and everyone for the better."
Baratov has been incarcerated at the Moshannon Valley Correctional Center, a minimum security federal prison 90 minutes northwest of Pittsburgh, and more recently at a similar facility in the area called Loretto. It's unclear how he posted the letter as well as photos on social media.
The warden at Moshannon Valley denied a Spectator reporter's request in 2019 to interview Baratov, or exchange letters with him, because the reporter had no pre-existing relationship with the inmate prior to incarceration."
In a photo posted to his Facebook page in August 2018, three months after his sentencing, Baratov poses with two inmates, all wearing blue prisoner scrubs.
The caption reads: Totally not in jail, just graduated from nursing school. Two very good chess players. My release date: 16/06/2021."
Jon Wells is a Hamilton-based reporter and feature writer for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jwells@thespec.com