‘Notorious’ French hacker who stole information from millions sentenced in Seattle

A man from France was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison and will have to pay more than $5 million in restitution for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Sebastien Raoult, 22, a French citizen from Epinal, France, was arrested in 2022 in Morocco and extradited to the United States in 2023.

According to the Department of Justice, Raoult participated in extensive computer hacking that caused millions of dollars in losses to a handful companies, and additional losses of hundreds of millions of individuals whose information was sold to other criminals.

“Mr. Raoult’s motive was pure greed. He sold hacked data. He stole people’s cryptocurrency. He even sold his hacking tools so that he could profit while other hackers attacked additional victims,” said Criminal Chief Sarah Vogel of the Western District of Washington.

According to court documents, Raoult and his co-conspirators hacked into protected computers of corporate entities to steal confidential information and customer records, including personal and financial information.

The information they stole was then offered up for sale on dark web forums. In some cases criminals threatened to leak or sell stolen sensitive information if a victim did not pay a ransom.

Raoult also helped create fake webpages of legitimate businesses and sent phishing emails to company employees. Once employees used their account information on the fake pages, Raoult would use the stolen credentials to access company networks and cloud storage services.

In total, the Department of Justice says Raoult and his co-conspirators stole hundreds of millions of customer records and caused losses of up to $6 million.

Speaking to the court, Sebastian Raoult said, “I understand my mistakes and I want to put that part behind me. No more hacking. I don’t want to disappoint my family again.”

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