Chinese state-sponsored contract hacker arrested in Italy at U.S. request, DOJ says
Xu Zewei, 33, was arrested on July 3, the Justice Department said, adding a nine-count indictment was unsealed on Tuesday in the Southern District of Texas alleging the involvement of that individual and a co-defendant in computer intrusions between February 2020 and June 2021.
Xu was arrested in Milan, Italy, and will face extradition proceedings, the DOJ said in a statement.
It alleged China's ministry of state security had directed theft of Covid-19 research and the exploitation of Microsoft MSFT.O email software vulnerabilities.
The Chinese government has previously denied allegations of being involved. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington, said on Tuesday that China opposes all forms of cyber crimes, adding that 'China has neither the need nor the intention to acquire vaccines through so-called theft.'
Xu's lawyer said on Tuesday that he is a victim of mistaken identity, that his surname is quite common in China and that his mobile phone had been stolen in 2020.
The 33-year-old IT manager at a Shanghai company appeared on Tuesday before an appeals court in Milan, which will decide whether to send him to the United States. The man was arrested last week after he arrived at Milan's Malpensa airport for a holiday in Italy with his wife.
U.S. authorities allege that he was part of a team of hackers who tried to access a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the University of Texas in 2020.
The DOJ also said that in 2021, he was part of a cyber-espionage group known as Hafnium, which has alleged ties to the Chinese government and which 'exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in U.S. systems to steal additional research.'
Hafnium targeted over 60,000 U.S. entities, according to the DOJ.
The charges listed on the arrest warrant were wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unauthorized access to protected computers.
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On 24 July, three justice department officials including Tirrell who were abruptly fired this summer, filed a lawsuit against Bondi seeking reinstatement and back pay arguing that they were axed improperly and without cause. Other ex-federal prosecutors say the department is now being weaponized to please Trump. 'There is literally no reason to fire these people, other than to continue molding the department into Trump's personal law firm,' Mike Romano, an ex-justice department prosecutor who left voluntarily in March after almost four years working on prosecutions of Trump allies who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. 'Trump and Bondi are bringing us back to the spoils system, where the government is not staffed by merit but based on favors, and is not staffed with experts, but with hacks and cronies. As a country, we decided almost 150 years ago that the spoils system is terrible and corrupt.' Further, Bondi and Trump have stepped up attacks on judges who have rebuked justice department lawyers for presenting arguments in court that were specious or failed to respond to judges' queries, several of which have involved the administration's hardline anti-immigrant actions, say critics. 'There are certain things lawyers should avoid doing because they are sure to pique the ire of federal judges,' said ex-federal judge John Jones who is president of Dickinson College 'These include patronizing, temporizing, lying and making baseless arguments. The Trump DoJ lawyers have hit them all before multiple judges.' Likewise, Emil Bove III, a key Trump defense lawyer in 2024 who was the justice department's number three for several months before Trump nominated him as a federal appeals court judge that the Senate recently approved, was cited in one whistleblower complaint for telling department lawyers they could flout court orders to further Trump's immigration agenda. 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