US authorities have placed a $10 million bounty on the head of a Russian master hacker who claims to have amputated his own finger after losing a wager. On Tuesday, Mikhail Matveev, 30, of Kaliningrad, was charged with leading the Hive, LockBit, and Babuk ransomware gangs.

From his residence in Russia, Matveev allegedly carried out plots to use ransomware variants to attack vital infrastructure, such as law enforcement, hospitals, government institutions, schools, and victims in other sectors, using the online aliases Wazawaka, m1x, Broriscelcin, and Uhodiransomwar.

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Indictments from federal grand juries in New Jersey and the District of Columbia said that he had damaged computers and sent out ransom demands.

US authorities claim that Matveev has been active in Russian ransomware groups that encrypt computer files and demand extortionate payments from businesses and government organizations in the US. According to the Justice Department, victims have paid extortion costs totaling $200 million as a result of three of the ransomware variants Matveev is accused of using.

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In addition to this, Mr. Matveev is charged with being a key player in the theft of the Washington, DC, police officers’ residential addresses in 2021 and boasting of knowing the real names of a large number of police informants.

In response to a tweet from CNN seeking reaction, Matveev posted a video of a Russian man saying, “I don’t give a f*** at all.”

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Videos of Matveev that cyber security expert Brian Krebs disseminated seem to show the Russian strutting around with a hand that is obviously missing a whole digit. Mr. Matveev, also known by his alias Wazawaka, stated that he hacked off his own finger after losing a bet.

According to Mr. Krebs, “It’s unclear if that is the real story about how Wazawaka lost the ring finger on his left hand; his remaining fingers appear oddly crooked.”