French justice authorizes the extradition of a man suspected of hacking in Finland

French justice gave the green light on Wednesday February 15 to the extradition to Helsinki of a man suspected of having hacked tens of thousands of files of people followed in psychotherapy in Finland, indicated a judicial source.

The investigative chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal has issued a judgment authorizing the surrender of Julius Kivimaki to the Finnish authorities, this source told AFP, confirming information from the Finnish media Yle.

The man had been on the run since October 2022

The man, arrested in the Paris region on February 3, was on the run under a European arrest warrant issued by Finland since October 2022 for extortion, hacking of tens of thousands of patient files following a psychotherapy.

His arrest in Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine) was fortuitous, unrelated to his arrest warrant.

The police were indeed alerted by two women fearing that the boyfriend of one of their acquaintances had violently attacked her.

On going to the couple's home, the police arrested the suspect and discovered that he was listed under three identities in the file of wanted persons, according to French police sources.

The Finnish authorities have been notified.

Read alsoBugs, failures, hacking … The new one-stop shop for companies turns into a puzzle

In October 2020, panic gripped Finland with the revelation of the hacking of the Vastaamo company, managing 25 psychotherapy centers across the country, and with it the theft of the data of thousands of patients.

The hackers had threatened the company to make the data public if it did not pay a ransom.

Then, in the fall of 2020, they began to disseminate data from some 2,000 patients, including children.

Some patients had received ransom demands of up to 200 euros in bitcoins, failing which their exchanges with their therapist would be published.