Ardit Kutleshi, one of the men accused of running the Rydox cybercrime marketplace, has pleaded guilty in the United States to aggravated identity theft and money laundering.
The 28-year-old was extradited from his home country of Kosovo last year. US prosecutors say he and his older brother ran Rydox, an illicit platform where cybercriminals bought stolen personal information, unauthorized access to devices and other tools used to commit fraud.
Sentencing is set for February. The aggravated identity theft charge carries a mandatory minimum of two years in prison. The money laundering count carries a maximum of 20 years.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has arrested two senior figures at Oxygen Forensics, a digital forensics and data extraction company whose software was bought by several federal agencies. Prosecutors allege the firm hid that Russian nationals controlled it and that its technology was developed in Russia.
Oxygen sells tools that investigators use to extract and analyze data from mobile devices, cloud services and drones. It competes directly with Cellebrite. Police and intelligence agencies commonly use this kind of software to break into phones. The company reportedly holds close to 10,000 contracts across more than 150 countries.
Its customers included the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Within DHS, several branches used Oxygen products:
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