Peter Romar, 36, was a Syrian national living in Waltershausen, Germany. On Monday, however, he was placed on a plane bound for Washington DC, where he will appear in a federal court in relation to charges of conspiracy.
The criminal complaint, which was unsealed last month, accuses Romar of being a member with the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). The group has been accused by the US government of hacking into the computers of private companies in support of the Assad government. Romar was charged alongside Firas Dardar and a third SEA hacker, Ahmad Umar Agha in September 2015.
"The Syrian Electronic Army publicly claims that its hacking activities are conducted in support of the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad," US Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said at the time.
The allegations claim that Dardar hacked into the servers of at least 14 different companies, most based in the United States, Europe, or China.
Once inside a company system, Dardar allegedly held the network for ransom, vandalizing the company’s website and stealing data in the meantime. SEA was believed to be behind a cyberattack on the Associated Press’s Twitter account in 2013, for instance. Under hacker control, the Twitter account posted a tweet falsely reporting an explosion at the White House.
This incident caused a $136 billion stock market drop.
If companies refused to pay, the hackers threatened to release private information obtained in the hack. In total, SEA demanded over $500,000 from various companies.
Currently on the FBI’s "Cyber Most Wanted" list, both Dardar and Umar Agha are believed to be in Syria. Romar’s role in the extortion scheme was to help redirect funds from entities which could directly transfer ransom money to Syria because of sanctions, according to prosecutors.
In addition to companies, the Syrian Electronic Army has also been accused of hacking into the US Army’s website in June 2015. For a brief period, all internet traffic to the military site was redirected to an image promoting the Syrian Army.
Romar will appear in court in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday.
