“For over two decades, Peter Levashov operated botnets which enabled him to harvest personal information from infected computers, disseminate spam, and distribute malware used to facilitate multiple scams,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said.

Russian authorities have accused the U.S. of “hunting” and “kidnapping” its citizens. Levashov's lawyers says politics is behind the case.

“The ability of botnets like Kelihos to be weaponized quickly for vast and varied types of harms is a dangerous and deep threat to all Americans," a U.S. official said.