Russian hacker avoids prison for $10m Royal Bank of Scotland raid

A Russian hacker who helped prepared criminals steal $10m (£6.2m) from Royal Bank of Scotland has avoided a jail sentence.

Yevgeny Anikin admitted his responsibility in a complicated international fraud against RBS World pay, a payment processing arm of the taxpayer-owned bank that was sold off last year.

A quad in Novosibirsk, Siberia, gave him a 5 year suspended jail sentence, 3 year probation and ordered him to repay his share of the stolen money.

The decision not to imprison Anikin is likely to frustrate UK and US cyber crime investigators, who often criticize Russia's lenient treatment to its internet fraudsters.

At the time of the theft Anikin was working as a sales administrator for an e-commerce firm. The 27 year old was also key part of the gang's technical team, who hacked into RBS World pay in 2008 to steal banking information.

The hackers used their access to RBS World pay’s systems to increase the cash withdrawal limit on counterfeit credit cards, to as much as $500,000, US court credentials say.

WORLD TECHNOLOGY {WT}