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I mean couldn't government pay the ransom and then go great lengths to track the suspects and send special forces after them? Surely US govt. has the ability to
by avgDev 5y ago
I mean couldn't government pay the ransom and then go great lengths to track the suspects and send special forces after them? Surely US govt. has the ability to track almost anyone.
Having US govt. on your ass should a decent deterrent.
Just take a look at how hard FBI came down on cartels and individuals who were involved in killing Enrique Camarena. Cartel leaders were arrested in Mexico and several individual in the US.
- Griffinsauce 5y agoThat introduces a scale problem. Even for the US.
- microtherion 5y agoIt appears that some of the major ransomware gangs are operating from Russia and are tolerated by the government, as long as they don't hit domestic targets. The US cannot really send special forces there without risking a massive escalation.
- londons_explore 5y agoI'm sure the US has hundreds of spies and personnel in Russia at any point in time. But sending a spy to a software developers house and assassinating them probably isn't going to stop the problem - more people will spring up doing the same.
- kilroy123 5y agoWe might not though. We don't even have a main diplomat there. Russia has always been notoriously hard to spy on. I would not be surprised if there was only a handful of well placed assets and most of the spying being done electronically.
- MrMorden 5y agoNo, but the people operating in Russia like to travel elsewhere, and do. Also, the US and allies can enforce Russian AML laws as written on paper. If, say, the UK freezes all of Oleg Deripaska's assets there, Vova will absolutely get the message. We're not going to bring down the Russian government with military force for a million different reasons, but doing it with sanctions and prosecution is a totally different story.
- smsm42 5y agoWhen they do US gets them. That happens from time to time, if you watch the news, you notice there are guys caught periodically who thought it's time for a nice vacation in Spain resting from their criminal activities... only to be picked up in the airport. However, the smarter ones stay put inside Russia and those are hard to get.
- chihuahua 5y agoBest example was when VW's Oliver Schmidt was arrested in Miami as he was changing planes. He was in trouble from the emissions fraud scheme.
- david12345 5y agoYup, for example that credit card frauder who went to the Maldives..