Rumbled Russian hackers banged up

The ringleaders of a Russian hacker group that misappropriated almost $1m from foreign bank accounts have been put behind bars.

Russian newspaper Kommersant reported yesterday that Zviadi Beria and Vladimir Medvedov had been sentenced to five years in prison.

Between 1999 and 2000 the duo, along with a number of other hackers, fraudulently manipulated ATM machines around Moscow and stole almost $1m from foreign accounts.

The enormity of the fraud, in which over 6,000 customers lost money, actually caused some banks to close down their cash machines.

Along with Beria and Medvedov, four other members of the hacker group were given three-year suspended sentences.

But the leader of the group, Yuri Levashov, got away with a three-year sentence under amnesty for petty offenders, which saw him walk free because he co-operated with the authorities.