A Russian citizen who is an important member of the Qilin hacker group was extradited to Germany following his arrest in Japan. The 28-year-old is suspected of carrying out attacks on German organizations and demanding payments in cryptocurrency.

The suspect was arrested in Osaka in May and handed over to the German police on October 2. The former was wanted in Germany for a hack into a logistics organization in September 2024. The latter’s data was encrypted and was extorted to the tune of $160,000 in cryptocurrency. For your information the Tokyo High Court approved his extradition to Germany.

Qilin has been operational since August 2022 and is a leading global figure in ransomware-as-a-service (Raas) operations. It has targeted hundreds of entities globally that resulted in millions of dollars in damages. In 2025, the group listed four hundred victims on its Tor-based leak site. It has been found the Russian citizen developed Qulin’s attack infrastructure and was paid a percentage cut from ransoms collected by different operational branches.

The man has been detained and extradited. However, he is yet to be convicted. Further his name has not been made public. Last year the ransomware group claimed responsibility online for a major system outage at Japanese food and beverage company Asahi Group Holdings. As per Japan’s National Police Agency, 123 ransomware attacks were confirmed in the first half of this year, setting a new half-year record high.

SOURCES:-

https://www.securityweek.com/qilin-ransomware-suspect-arrested-in-japan-extradited-to-germany/

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/10/08/japan/crime-legal/germany-arrest-qilin-japan-extradite/

https://www.kucoin.com/news/flash/qilin-ransomware-group-core-member-arrested-in-japan-and-extradited-to-germany

https://tech-insider.org/qilin-ransomware-core-member-arrested-japan-2026/

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/10/06/japan/qilin-hacker-group-japan-germany/