Detained in Morocco, the 21-year-old Frenchman is said to be a member of a group of hackers who steal sensitive data around the world. He faces a 116-year prison sentence in the United States.
When the superintendent called us, we hadn’t heard from him for two days. The airline and the French consulate in Morocco had no information. Nothing ! “For two and a half months, Paul Raoult has been replaying the film of the events that have changed the life of his son, and his own.
Read also: Sébastien Raoult, soon to be extradited to the United States?
On May 31, friends dropped off the 21-year-old student at Rabat airport. Sébastien had just taken a three-month break in Morocco, a country he discovered during an internship. He had put aside his studies at Epitech, the computer school of Nancy, to live his life. His friends had planned to pick him up at Brussels airport to bring him back to his parents in Épinal. Everything was set, except that Sébastien didn’t appear when he got out of the plane. “At first we were like, ‘He’s young, he had to stay, eventually.’ But it wasn’t like him. He’s the style to send selfies!
Read also: The confessions of a hacker
Forty-eight hours later, Paul learns that his son has been arrested by the FBI. Stupor. On the phone, the policeman apologizes for not being able to give more details. “What I can tell you is that he is not charged with a crime of blood, nor with attacking state security.” “Oh! We are reassured! the father quips before hanging up. Former administrative employee of the social services of the Vosges department, Paul is an energetic young retiree. He lives with his wife in a large, unpretentious house on the heights of Épinal. His friends and family were eagerly awaiting the child prodigy. His father and brother describe a curious, helpful and friendly boy. “Unlike his brothers, he was born with a computer at home,” explains Paul, who remembers him, at age 9, doing his holiday homework in front of the computer. Back in France, Sébastien had no particular project. His father hoped to see him go back to school, without worrying, because Sébastien had good company, at least in real life.
In virtual life, it’s a different story. Known by a nickname, “Sezyo”, he teamed up in 2019 with a band of hackers who publish screenshots of their hacks on geek forums. The champion of the genre lives in Tarbes.
“They are immature little geniuses”, sweeps Paul Raoult
Suffering from a mild autism syndrome known as Asperger’s, he presents himself under the pseudonym of “Kuroi’SH”. On his Twitter profile, he defines himself as an “iel” (neither he nor she), researcher on Western Sahara… His first feat of arms is to have hacked several NASA sites in 2015. He is 15 years old and shines in chess tournaments. This Bobby Fischer of IT distinguished himself three years later by removing from the YouTube platform the most viewed video in the world: the clip “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi, more than 7 billion views. Kuroi’SH humorously claims an act of “public health”. He escaped conviction thanks to his Asperger’s syndrome, but his accomplice, a man from Grenoble nicknamed “Prosox”, received a sentence of one hundred and forty hours of community service.
During the trial, the judge will advise the two post-teens, who had never seen each other before, to use their skills “within a legal framework”. Despite the warning, they are quickly suspected of having robbed a bitcoin platform. Again, here they are in court. Prosox is remanded in custody and luxury goods are seized, including the car in front of which Kuroi’SH poses proudly in an image posted on social media. The case, in progress, does not concern Sébastien Raoult.
According to the indictment written on June 23, 2021 by the Washington State District Court, Sébastien, like Kuroi’SH and a third thief from the Lyon region, “Jordan Keso”, would be a member of the ShinyHunters. Borrowed from the Pokémon galaxy, a cult geek series, the name designates a band of pirates who reign terror on the Web. By deploying a range of traps, they are accused of remotely sucking up the data of individuals, but also of large companies such as Microsoft. Once collected, this data ends up on darknet marketplaces, the hidden face of the Web. As in flea markets, we sell and buy data “fallen from the truck”. Sometimes the “merchandise” is returned to the owners in exchange for a ransom. The process has a name: ransomware (ransomware in French). On March 30, 2021, an Indian company paid 1.2 million euros in cryptocurrency to the ShinyHunters.
Sébastien languishes in a prison in Rabat, with seven fellow prisoners, in “acceptable but difficult” conditions
Paul Raoult does not believe for a second that his son has dabbled in this villainous business. For him, if his kid let himself get carried away, it’s for the adrenaline. “They are immature little geniuses,” he sweeps away. Famous hacker of the late 1990s, the Frenchman Anthony Zboralski is also of this opinion. Based in London, at the head of a start-up, he explains that his motivation was not money: “I dreamed of becoming an astronaut or a spy, but a pirate, I did not need to wait for my 18 year!” If Sébastien Raoult was not attracted by the gain, why would he have embarked with the ShinyHunters? What role did he play? Who pulled the strings?
According to the FBI report, the group made a name for itself by targeting users of a software developer mutual aid platform called GitHub. Represented by the Octocat kitten logo, another borrowing from Japanese fiction, the app offers geeks the opportunity to share their “codes” in open sources. Everyone can take the work of another, improve it and pass it on. The site concentrates a large population of computer engineers and coding geniuses. By targeting them, the ShinyHunters have accumulated strategic data and no doubt attracted the attention of intelligence services. The account of Sezyo, nickname of Sébastien, would have contributed to it.
On the living room table, a puzzle of 6000 pieces is in progress; in the kitchen, the coffee pot smokes and the brains too. Paul Raoult speaks quickly. Her son languishes in a prison in Rabat, with seven fellow prisoners, in “acceptable but difficult” conditions. “He told me on the phone that he was not afraid of being tried in the United States and that the American judges would realize his innocence.” The father is less optimistic. He understands that the Americans have it bad against hackers and are ready to lead punitive expeditions. He risks, in total, up to one hundred and sixteen years in prison.
As in the flea markets, we sell on the darknet data “fallen from the truck”
The family lawyer’s line of defense seems clear: “Why should he pay for the others on the pretext that he is the only one to have left the territory? launches Me Philippe Ohayon, denouncing the hypocrisy of the power which acts as if this affair did not concern France. For him, this is where everything should be judged. At the end of July, Me Ohayon wrote to the court of Épinal to demand the opening of a judicial inquiry against his client. The height is that he suffered a refusal! In a letter of July 29, the magistrate considers that “no element justifies the commission of facts on the territory of the Vosges”.
Argument challenged by the lawyer in a letter dated August 2, in which he appeals to judicial sovereignty, arguing that his client risks life imprisonment and inhuman treatment in the United States. He denounces the impossibility for Sébastien to be confronted with people placed in police custody in France. All his efforts come up against a wall of silence. The Ministry of Justice has not sent any extradition request to Morocco. As for his minister, Éric Dupond Moretti, he practices the policy of the ostrich and presents the arrest of Sébastien Raoult as a matter which concerns only Morocco and the United States.
We now know that the FBI has been investigating in France for three years. The American magistrates sent a request for mutual legal assistance to their Parisian counterparts on July 21, 2020, then additional requests on May 5 of the following year. Seized, the cyber pole of the Paris prosecutor’s office conducted investigations. The day after Sébastien Raoult’s arrest, the entire galaxy of “made in France” hackers received a visit from the police officers of the sub-directorate for the fight against cybercrime, some accompanied by FBI agents.
The Bobby Fischer of hackers was first on both lists. In Nîmes, “K3LOT3X” was placed in police custody. The next day, the examining magistrate Marine Fontange ordered the return of his telephone, his Mac and his PC, which contained “no element useful to the procedure”. This is express expertise! Me Ohayon wonders why it was necessary to wait for Sébastien Raoult to be in Morocco to carry out this operation. “While, he says, they could all be arrested in France, months ago.”