When the U.S. State Department recently offered up to $2.5 million for information leading to the arrest of alleged cyber-fraudster Volodymyr Kadariya, it marked another turn in a saga that saw the man transform from suspected criminal to political dissident and back.
For 15 years, Kadariya has been wanted in his native Belarus on cybercrime charges.
American prosecutors accuse him of involvement in a scheme to transmit malicious malware to U.S. computers. Millions of internet users reportedly fell victim to the scheme.
But Kadariya has been particularly elusive.
After coming under suspicion in Belarus, he fled the country and lived abroad for many years. During this time, he managed to obtain asylum and eventually citizenship in Ukraine, according to multiple media reports and official government statements from the United States and Belarus.
When he was detained in Kyrgyzstan in 2022 on the Belarusian charges, he claimed to be facing political persecution. Even United Nations officials spoke out against his extradition.
Today, as the United States seeks his arrest, it is unclear whether Kadariya is even at liberty.
Mystery man
There is little publicly available information about Volodymyr — or, alternately, Vladimir Kadariya. That may not even be his real name.
Kadariya, 38, is a native of Belarus. Around 2008, he came under suspicion of stealing large sums of money “by modifying computer information,” according to the country’s investigative committee.
Kadariya allegedly purchased stolen bank card information on the “darknet,” encoded it onto dummy cards, and used them to withdraw money.
Belarusian investigators say citizens of the United States, Poland, France and Britain fell victim to the scheme.
They also claim that, in 2016, Kadariya applied for refugee status in Ukraine. Later, he likely obtained Ukrainian citizenship.
Equally, little is known about Kadariya’s life in Ukraine. According to open databases, someone with his rare name was previously among the beneficiaries of two Ukrainian companies: Cosmo Medical and Digital Med.
Kadariya also shows up in a photo from IT Nature Party International, a 2018 party held on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Arrest and extradition
According to Belarusian investigators, in 2022, they learned that Kadariya had been living for some time in Spain. After he flew to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, he was detained that September. Minsk requested his extradition.
Kadariya claimed he was being persecuted for political reasons in his homeland. Whether or not that claim was true, it likely sounded plausible.
After the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, which the United States deemed fraudulent, a wave of protests struck the country. Security forces arrested thousands of people. There are still more than 1,500 political prisoners in Belarus.
Some estimates suggest that up to half a million Belarusians left the country in the wake of the crackdown.
In Kyrgyzstan, Kadariya claimed he was a Belarusian citizen originally named Andrei Kovalev. He received refugee status in Ukraine in 2017. Later, when receiving citizenship, he changed his name, his Kyrgyz lawyer told RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service in March 2023.
In a March 2023 interview with Current Time, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA, Kadariya claimed he had worked as the administrator of an opposition website in Minsk that published articles about corruption. He said that Belarusian security forces detained him in 2008 and seized his laptop, but due to data encryption, they could not confirm his connection to the opposition. After being released in 2008, Kadariya immediately left the country.
The Kyrgyz Prosecutor General’s Office did not find any political motives in the charges against Kadariya and a court soon approved his extradition.
Kadariya tried to appeal. His lawyer said that his extradition would violate Kyrgyzstan’s obligations to international organizations.
After the court rejected Kadariya’s appeal, the United Nations weighed in. In a letter to the Kyrgyz prosecutor general, representatives of the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Kadariya should not be deported because he had requested asylum in Kyrgyzstan. According to them, the court’s decision to extradite him violated the U.N. Refugee Convention and local legislation, Current Time reported.
Kadariya penned an appeal to President Sadyr Japarov asking the Kyrgyz leader to prevent his deportation.
In March 2023, he was extradited back to Belarus.
In a video published that month by Belarusian investigators on the Telegram messenger, Kadariya states that he has no connections to the opposition and had never been involved in politics.
Dmytro Mazurok, a Ukrainian lawyer based in Kyiv who specializes in migration, says he would not trust a statement given in the presence of Belarusian investigators.
“They have a harsh system of coercion,” he said.
At the same time, it’s not unfathomable that Kadariya could have received asylum in Ukraine on false grounds — particularly at the time he applied.
“I can say for sure that obtaining refugee status and, subsequently, citizenship for a person with money is not a problem,” Mazurok told VOA.
American accusations
On August 12, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Maksim Silnikau, the alleged leader of a cybercriminal group, was extradited from Poland to the U.S.
American prosecutors allege that he worked together with Kadariya and one other alleged cybercriminal, Russian citizen Andrei Tarasov. Like Kadariya, Silnikau holds both Belarusian and Ukrainian citizenships.
According to a New Jersey indictment, from 2013 to 2022 the three men used so-called malvertising on the internet to infect Americans’ computers with malicious software, including one called “Angler Exploit Kit.”
Among the ways they allegedly profited from this scheme was by selling stolen user information and access to infected devices to other cybercriminals.
To promote their scheme, the three accomplices created domains to host malware and posed as legitimate advertisers, the indictment states. It describes Kadariya as a “malicious advertiser.”
If found guilty, each man could face 27 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 10 years for conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and 20 years for each count of wire fraud.
In Kadariya’s case, one important question remains: Is he at large?
VOA was unable to contact Kadariya for comment or confirm his whereabouts.
He may be in custody in Belarus, where he was extradited a year-and-a-half ago, but the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
The State Department and DOJ also did not answer VOA’s questions about Kadariya’s whereabouts.
Notably, the State Department announced August 26 that it is offering the $2.5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction “in any country.”
