The Department of Justice announced Tuesday that an ex-U.S. military member who hacked computers for the government of the United Arab Emirates had been granted a “deferred prosecution” agreement, which allowed him to avoid criminal prosecution in exchange for paying a fine of $335,000 to the government of the UAE.
Nonetheless, for Daniel Gericke, the punishment will most likely not set him back too much because the same day he sold his part of the business in a roughly $1 billion transaction. Gericke has been with the company since 2004.
According to CNET, ExpressVPN revealed that it had been sold to Kape Technologies for a total of $936 million dollars.
Kape was co-founded by an ex-Israeli surveillance agent and a billionaire previously convicted of insider trading and was previously an adware company called CrossRider.
ExpressVPN told the publication, “We’ve known the key facts relating to Daniel’s employment history since before we hired him, as he disclosed them proactively and transparently with us from the start. In fact, it was his history and expertise that made him an invaluable hire for our mission to protect users’ privacy and security.”
Two former members of the United States intelligence community, Marc Baier and Ryan Adams, along with a former member of the military who has since renounced his citizenship, received an unusual plea bargain from federal prosecutors in the United States. Even though they had engaged in a stunning betrayal of national trust, the deal would result in their not incurring criminal convictions if they paid a fine and completed other requirements.
Baier must pay $750,000 and Adams $600,000 — despite years of working on behalf of the oil-rich foreign nation. But Gericke’s fine is particularly unlikely to form any sort of deterrent since the VPN deal was so lucrative.
The business deal will include establishing the ExpressVPN Digital Security Lab, an independent research arm which conducts high-quality, original research to empower consumers with information about digital rights.
