TALLINN — An Estonian national accused of taking part in a $9 million (€6 million) heist, identity theft and other frauds, was handed over to the FBI last Thursday by the Baltic state.

Tsurikov have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, computer fraud, and aggravated identity theft.

According the information from the Acting U.S. Attorney’s Office, they face a maximum sentence of up to 20 years for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and each wire fraud count; up to five years for conspiracy to commit computer fraud; up to five or 10 years for each count of computer fraud; a two-year mandatory minimum for aggravated identity theft; and fines up to $3.5 million dollars.

According to the Acting U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia, it’s “perhaps the most sophisticated and organized computer fraud attack ever conducted”.

On Nov. 8, 2008 more then 2,100 automated teller machines in 280 cities on three continents were used by numerous thieves in an almost simultaneous action to cash out more then $9 million. The ATMs in the United States, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Estonia, Russia and Ukraine were robbed over the course of 12 hours using stolen or cloned debit cards and forged personal identification numbers.

The FBI believes that the total amount could even be higher had the targeted ATMs not been drained of all their money.