Leader Of 'Shaltai-Boltai' Hacking Group Released From Russian Jail

The leader of a group believed to be behind the hacking of high-profile accounts including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's feed has been released from jail.

Vladimir Anikeyev, head of the collective called Shaltai-Boltai -- Humpty Dumpty in Russian -- was released from Lefortovo pretrial detention center in Moscow on August 3, his lawyer Ruslan Koblev said on August 6.

Lefortovo district court official Yelena Bychkova said that Anikeyev, whose two-year prison term was due to end in November, was released under a newly adopted law that equates one day spent in pretrial detention to 1 1/2 day in prison.

Anikeyev had been held at the Lefortovo jail since he was sentenced in July 2017 after striking a plea bargain and agreeing to cooperate with the authorities.

Two other Shaltai-Boltai members, Aleksandr Filinov and Konstantin Teplyakov, were sentenced to three years in prison each in September 2017.

The 2016 arrests of the Shaltai-Boltai suspects became known only after Russian media reported that two officials of the Federal Security Service (FSB) cybercrime unit had been arrested on treason charges.

Russian media reports suggested the officials had connections to the hacker group or had tried to control it.

Based on reporting by RNS and Interfax