Florida man Angelo Martino has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for conspiring with hackers to deploy ransomware while working as a ransomware negotiator for a U.S. cybersecurity company. The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the sentence and seized more than $10 million worth of cryptocurrency and assets, including a food truck and a luxury fishing boat that Martino allegedly bought with money stolen in the hacks.
Martino is the third person jailed in the scheme after cybersecurity professionals Kevin Martin and Ryan Goldberg. Prosecutors say the trio worked together to deploy BlackCat ransomware against U.S. companies throughout 2023. In one successful attack they extorted about $1.2 million from a company, split the proceeds three ways after laundering the funds, and highlighted a rare case of security professionals moonlighting for malicious hackers.
BlackCat, also known as ALPHV, operates as a ransomware-as-a-service platform that lets independent affiliates rent its file-encrypting malware in exchange for a cut of the profits. The same ransomware was later used in the February 2024 Change Healthcare breach that exposed highly sensitive medical and billing data of more than 192 million Americans, though the affiliates responsible for that incident were never identified.
The case underscores longstanding government advice that victims should not pay ransoms, even as an entire insurance sub-sector has grown around ransomware response and negotiation services that attempt to lower extortion demands.