Julius Kivimäki, 25, had been wanted for two years in Finland for the hacking of several psychotherapy centers. He was arrested in Courbevoie in the Paris region by the anti-crime brigade.
Hollywood taught us that criminals often fall in stupid ways. This Friday, February 3, police officers from the anti-crime brigade (BAC) arrested Julius Kivimäki, a Finnish hacker wanted for hacking the data of thousands of patients in psychotherapy. The police broke down a door in an apartment in Courbevoie, in the Parisian suburbs, after a report of domestic violence, reports the site actu.fr. A friend notified the police after a couple’s argument with the suspect.
The police arrest the individual at his home and decide to check the register of wanted persons, not trusting his Romanian papers. The agents discover that it is Julius Kivimäki, known as “Zeekill”, a notorious Finnish criminal hacker wanted by Europol.
50,000 acts of cybercrime at age 17
Although he is only 25 years old, his hacker CV is already full, with a career that begins at 15 years old. As a teenager, he offered to carry out DDoS attacks – to bring down a site – for sums of money. Later, young Julius made bogus bomb threats or reported hostage-takings in homes to get the police to intervene.
Along with other hackers, he forms a self-proclaimed group the Lizard Squad. This collective finances itself in a fairly traditional way, by launching denial of service attacks to disrupt sites for a few hundred euros. The group achieved a certain notoriety after offensives on the Xbox and PlayStation online network. He was arrested for the first time at the age of 17 with already 50,700 acts of cybercrime to his credit.
Julius Kivimäk commits his biggest data heist in October 2020 by attacking a hospital group of 25 psychotherapy centers named Vastaamo. It takes the files of 22,000 patients hostage, demanding a ransom of 452,000 to unlock them.
Too much. This hacking becomes a public affair in Finland, the establishment refuses to pay the sum and “Zeekill”, in the impasse, tries to extort individually the families of each patient against approximately 500 euros. He leaves clues in the files he scatters on the darknet allowing the authorities to trace him.
On the run for more than two years, Julius Kivimäk will be arrested at 7 a.m. on February 3, in his apartment in Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine). He should be extradited to Finland.
