Overview
- Sina Gholinejad, 37, pleaded guilty to computer fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud; he faces up to 30 years in prison when sentenced in August.
- Prosecutors say the Robbinhood operation ran from January 2019 through March 2024 and targeted over a dozen entities, including municipal governments, healthcare providers and private companies.
- The May 2019 attack on Baltimore’s IT systems alone inflicted more than $19 million in damages and forced city departments to take hundreds of computers offline for months.
- Investigators report suspects deployed Robbinhood to encrypt files, demanded Bitcoin ransoms and used VPNs, private servers and cryptocurrency mixers to evade law enforcement.
- The case highlights coordination between the Justice Department, FBI and international partners in Bulgaria to trace the scheme and hold overseas actors accountable.