Estonian hacker extradited to US

TALLINN - An Estonian hacker suspected of taking part in a massive credit card scam has been extradited to the US state of Georgia for trial.

Sergei Tsurikov, 26, is accussed of participating in an international ring of comuper criminals that stole more than $9.4 million through the use of false cards in ATM machines worldwide.

"In November 2008, in just one day, an American credit card processor was hacked in perhaps the most sophisticated and organized computer fraud attack ever conducted," U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said

Tsurikov was detained by a judge in Atlanta on the grounds that he was a flight risk.

The ring was charged with breaking into RBS WorldPay's computer network for payroll debit cards, then cloning the cards and distributing them to a worldwide network of cashiers. The gang accessed more than 2,100 ATMs over the course of 12 hours.

The people who withdrew the money were able to keep some of it but sent much of it back to the leaders of the group, including Tsurikov, the indictment said.