Angelo Martino, a former ransomware negotiator, has admitted guilt in aiding cybercriminals to extort companies. On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department revealed the guilty plea. Martino, previously with cybersecurity firm DigitalMint, confessed to manipulating negotiations in five incidents, sharing confidential data with ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware operators, including victims’ insurance details and negotiation tactics. His aim was to maximize payouts for criminals, taking a share himself, prosecutors stated. This makes him the third negotiator to face jail over such a scheme this year.
“Angelo Martino’s clients trusted him to respond to ransomware threats and help thwart them,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva. “Instead, he betrayed them, aiding cybercriminals and harming victims, his employer, and the incident response industry.”
ALPHV/BlackCat functions as ransomware-as-a-service, where affiliates deploy the malware and share ransom profits with developers. Last year, prosecutors accused another DigitalMint employee, Kevin Tyler Martin, and Ryan Clifford Goldberg of aiding the ransomware gang they were meant to counter.
Previously unnamed, Martino was identified as the third individual in this scheme. Martino pleaded guilty to extortion, facing up to 20 years in prison, with authorities seizing $10 million in assets. He admitted to helping Goldberg and Martin use ALPHV/BlackCat’s ransomware against U.S. victims for six months in 2023, earning over $1.2 million from a single victim. DigitalMint stated they were unaware of Martino’s activities and had dismissed the involved employees.
In 2023, international law enforcement seized ALPHV/BlackCat’s dark web site, disrupting operations and released a decryption tool assisting over 500 victims in system restoration.