http://www.bergen.com/page.php?level_3_id=10&page=3663542 Wednesday, May 22, 2002 By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK - Two men from Kazakhstan who were caught two years ago with help from Michael Bloomberg, in his role as a businessman, have been brought to the United States to face extortion charges, authorities said Tuesday. Oleg Zezov, 28, and Igor Yarimaka, 38, both of Almaty, Kazakhstan, were accused of trying to extort $200,000 from Bloomberg L.P. after breaking into the company's computer system. They were brought to the United States on Friday. A federal magistrate judge on Monday ordered them detained. Prosecutors say Bloomberg, the company's founder and now mayor of New York City, aided the capture by persuading the men to meet him in London after Zezov allegedly demanded by e-mail that he deposit $200,000 into an offshore account. Lawyers for the men did not immediately return telephone messages for comment. A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul B. Radvany stated that Bloomberg met with both defendants in London on Aug. 10, 2000. At the time, Bloomberg was accompanied by two London Metropolitan police officers who posed as a company executive and a translator. The complaint alleged that Yarimaka claimed at the meeting that he was a former Kazakhstan prosecutor and that he represented his companion, a man he identified as "Alex," as the person who would handle the payment. Zezov, who had worked for a company that produced database services for Bloomberg, and Yarimaka both reiterated their demands at the meeting and were arrested afterward, prosecutors said. According to court papers, Yarimaka said they had not committed any crimes but were trying to get paid for showing that Bloomberg's computer security system was inept. "We take hacking crimes very seriously," U.S. Attorney James B. Comey said in a release. If convicted on charges of extortion and unauthorized computer intrusion, the men face potential penalties of more than 20 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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