Less than a week after hacker Aleksanteri Kivimäki was released by the Helsinki Court of Appeal, prosecutors have filed new charges in the Vastaamo psychotherapy centre case.
The Prosecutor's Office says the new suspect is a 28-year-old foreign national. Swedish-language broadcaster Svenska Yle reports that he is an American living in Estonia.
He has been charged with aiding an attempted aggravated extortion. Patients received emails demanding payment in cryptocurrency to prevent their medical records from being leaked online.
Police linked him to the case by tracing bitcoins. In a sting operation, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) followed the payments and found that some went to an account held by Kivimäki, and some to an account the suspect could access.
According to the prosecutor's statement, the attempted aggravated extortion took place between 28 September and 23 October 2020. The suspect denies the charges.
After a lengthy trial at Helsinki District Court, Kivimäki was handed a six-year and three-month prison sentence in April 2024 for charges related to the hacking of psychotherapy centre Vastaamo's patient database
Kivimäki was convicted of an aggravated data breach offence, nearly 9,600 counts of aggravated invasion of privacy related to the dissemination of information, more than 21,300 counts of attempted aggravated extortion and 20 counts of aggravated blackmail.
