MOSCOW, April 21 (RAPSI) – Russian citizen Alexander Panin has been sentenced to 9.5 years in prison by a court in the U.S. state of Georgia for cyber fraud, Associated Press has reported.

According to Associated Press, earlier Panin pleaded guilty to one of 23 charges. Prosecution’s documents read that Panin, also known as Gribodemon, was the main creator of malicious malware known as SpyEye which has infected 50 million computers in the U.S.

Between 2009 and 2011, Panin and others conspired to advertise and develop different versions of the program. He was able to sell the malware to upwards of 150 individuals, each of whom paid a sum ranging between $500 and $10,000 for different versions of the program, Associated Press has reported.

According to the prosecutors, the grand total damage from thefts conducted using SpyEye runs up to $1,000,000,000, Associated Press has reported.

Algerian national Hamza Bendelladj was sentenced to 15 years in prison for selling various versions of the malware. According to Associated Press, an investigation into Panin began in 2011 when FBI agents confiscated a server with operational SpyEye system from Bendelladj who was later arrested in Bangkok in 2013.

Panin was arrested by the US authorities in Georgia, in July 2013. In January 2014 he pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire and bank fraud.

After the FBI investigation, four Panin’s accomplices from Bulgaria and UK were arrested.

The US authorities earlier motioned to the Court of Northern District of Georgia to allow for releasing the information about hundreds of thousands of possible victims of Panin’s fraud.

The motion stated that the sheer number of potential victims, their diverse points of origin and lack of any information beside the IP address hampered their identification and the ability to notify them that their computers have been compromised.