Ransomware Negotiator Gets 6 Years in Prison for Assisting Scammers

A cybersecurity expert has been sentenced to prison for helping criminals scam his clients.

Angelo Martino, 41, who had served as a ransomware negotiator for the company Digital Mint, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison last week, according to an announcement from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

“He was hired to help victims in a moment of crisis,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.

“Instead, Martino betrayed them, fed their confidential negotiating positions to ransomware criminals, and helped squeeze them for more money.”

Court documents say Martino abused his position and worked with the operators of the BlackCat ransomware group to extort five different victims. The DOJ says Martino was paid by BlackCat attackers to share confidential information about the negotiating position and strategy of his employer’s customers, letting the gang maximize the ransoms.

According to the DOJ, Martino conspired with former cybersecurity professionals: Kevin Martin, 36, of Texas, who was hired as Martino’s coworker after the crimes began, and Ryan Goldberg, 41, of Georgia, who worked for another cybersecurity firm.

“After successfully extorting one victim for approximately $1.2 million in Bitcoin, the men split their share of the ransom three ways and laundered the funds through various means,” the DOJ’s announcement added.

Martino pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to interfere with interstate commerce through extortion. Martin and Goldberg were sentenced in May to 48 months in prison after pleading guilty in December.

The DOJ says law enforcement has  seized $10 million of assets from Martino, including digital currency, vehicles, a food truck, and a luxury fishing boat obtained through the scheme. A hearing in September is due to determine how much restitution he must pay.

A report on the sentencing by Ars Technica said that Martino had pleaded guilty and sought a 24-month sentence, arguing he had “provided substantial assistance that contributed to the indictment and conviction of two co-defendants.”

The job of negotiating with hackers has become an in-demand one, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year, now that ransomware “has become a structured, global industry,” with attackers now employing “double extortion,” threatening to leak stolen data if payment is not made.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows hackers are increasingly targeting middle market companies, which depend on third-party cloud providers, software-as-a-service platforms, managed service and logistics providers, which can leave them open to attack.