MOSCOW, January 29 (RAPSI) - Deniss Calovskis, the alleged Latvian hacker, decided to surrender to US authorities that accuse him of helping create a virus that affected over a million computers worldwide, mixnews.lv reported on Thursday.
“It took me a long time to make this decision. I’m not running, I’m not hiding. I had over 365 opportunities to flee. But I’ve decided to go to the United States and to give myself up to US authorities,” media outlet quoted Calovskis as saying.
He added that he had applied for a US visa.
Russian national Nikita Kuzmin and Romanian national Mihai Ionut Paunescu are implicated in the case along with Calovskis.
They are suspected of creating and distributing virus dubbed "Gozi" to steal online banking data worldwide.
Kuzmin was arrested during his visit to California in 2010. He helped prosecutors nab the other two men, who were arrested in 2012.
On January 7, 2015, the Latvian Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by Calovskis’ lawyer, Ilona Bulgakova, to review the lower court’s ruling allowing him to be extradited to the United States.