A search took place on Wednesday at the French home of Sébastien Raoult, imprisoned in Morocco and claimed by American justice for cybercrime, as part of an investigation into software allowing to attack mail servers, according to the prosecution. of Paris, confirming a source close to the investigation. This preliminary investigation is an incidental procedure of a judicial investigation opened in Paris on April 9, 2021 relating to phishing (phishing, a form of scam on the internet) committed between June 2019 and March 2020.
Entrusted to the cybercrime brigade (BL2C), it was opened on August 30 for offer or transfer, possession of equipment, programs designed or adapted to commit an attack on an automated processing system. Following investigations that led to a “possible identification” in early November, a search took place at the home of Sébastien Raoult, in the Vosges, to verify the possible involvement of this 21-year-old former computer science student arrested on 31 May in Tangier (northern Morocco).
“This confirms that it is appropriate to extradite Sébastien Raoult to France”, reacted to AFP his lawyer Me Philippe Ohayon: “If there is no extradition request made within 15 days, this is going to be very shocking. Sébastien Raoult is accused by American justice in particular of conspiracy to commit electronic fraud and abuse and of being a member of the “ShinyHunters”, suspected by the Americans of being behind cyberattacks by large companies, which he disputes. .
A pending extradition request
Sébastien Raoult’s pseudonym before his arrest in Morocco at the end of May was Sezyo. As part of the main judicial investigation, a young Internet user, aged around 20, is notably suspected of having used a site used to produce false documents, according to elements known to AFP. Arrested, the site administrator, a 17-year-old teenager, told investigators that he was chatting on Discord with a certain “Sezyo”.
Investigators suspect an agreement between this teenager and “Sezyo” to develop and market this software to fraudulently recover access credentials to the administration panels of Amazon Web Service (AWS) servers, remote computing activity ( cloud) of the American distribution giant, and to resell them, in particular on Telegram.
The Moroccan Court of Cassation issued in August a “favorable opinion” to this extradition. His fate is now in the hands of the Moroccan Prime Minister. Since his arrest, his father Paul Raoult and Mr. Ohayon have tried in vain to convince the courts and the French authorities to have him extradited to France for trial.