UK reveals father and son at heart of Evil Corp hacking group

The UK, US and Australia have announced sanctions against 16 people authorities accuse of being part of the most wanted cyber crime gang in the world.

Russia-based Evil Corp is accused of stealing around $300m in nearly ten years of hacking.

The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) says it can now reveal the gang’s notorious leader, Maksim Yakubets, has been supported by his father Viktor Yakubets – something he had denied when interviewed by the BBC in 2021.

The information has been released as part of a large, multinational operation to disrupt Evil Corp and another notorious hacking group called LockBit.

Known for their mafia-style of operation, Evil Corp has waged a campaign of destructive cyber-attacks worldwide for over a decade.

In 2019, Maksim Yakubets was sanctioned and a $5m bounty was put up for his arrest, along with another man called Igor Turashev.

Other Russian individuals, including Yakubets’ brother Artem, were also named as part of the US sanctions and designations.

In 2021 the BBC travelled to Russia to search for and interview members of the gang to get their side of the story.

At a former home of Maksim Yakubets we found his father, who gave an impassioned defence of his son while claiming he was personally innocent.

But now the NCA says that Yakubets senior was a major part of the cyber-crime group, accusing him of aiding the gang in laundering some of its stolen funds.