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DOJ Charges Seven Russian Spies in Hacking Plot Linked to Olympics Doping Scandal

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The Department of Justice on Thursday announced the indictment of seven Russian military spies on cyberhacking charges.

The indictment was announced at a press conference by John Demers, assistant attorney general for the DOJ's national security division.

Demers alleges that Russia's military intelligence agency, known as the GRU, targeted the hacking victims because they had publicly supported a ban on Russian athletes in international sports competitions and because they had condemned Russia's state-sponsored athlete doping program.

"The defendants believed they could use their anonymity to act with impunity in their own countries and on the territories of other sovereign nations to undermine international institutions and to distract from their government's own wrongdoing," Demers said. "They were wrong."

The victims included about 250 athletes from 30 countries, along with anti-doping agencies around the world.

Agents say they all belong to the Russia state-sponsored hacking group known as "Fancy Bear."

In July 2016, the World Anti-Doping Agency released a report describing Russia's systematic subversion of the drug testing process before, during and after the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

As a result, 111 Russian athletes were banned from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The International Paralympic Committee imposed a blanket ban on Russian athletes in its 2016 games.

The hackers leaked medical information and emails stolen from officials from 40 anti-doping and sporting organizations.

The Washington Post reports that four of those charged belong to GRU Unit 26165, which was the other team implicated in the July indictment. They are Aleksei Morenets, 41; Evgenii Serebriakov, 37; Ivan Yermakov, 32; Artem Malyshev, 30; Dmitriy Badin, 27. Also charged were Oleg Sotnikov, 46, and Alexey Minin, 46.

The FBI said four of the GRU officers are also being charged with targeting organizations probing Russia's alleged use of chemical weapons, including the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.

"We want the hundreds of victims of these Russian hackers to know that we will do everything we can to hold these criminals accountable for their crimes," said Scott Brady, US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, where the grand jury indicted the Russians.

While DOJ officials made it clear that this case is entirely separate from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, there are overlapping actors involved.

Three of the seven officials that are named in this specific indictment were also named by Mueller as interfering in the 2016 US election.

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