Italy extradites alleged Chinese hacker to US accused of spying for Beijing during COVID-19 pandemic

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Italy has extradited a Chinese hacker to the United States accused of spying for his country’s government during the COVID-19 pandemic, police said on Monday.

The man was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport last July and is “suspected of acting for the Chinese government,” a police statement said.

The FBI accuses Xu Zewei of hacking US government entities, research institutes and universities involved in vaccine research in 2020 and 2021 at the height of the pandemic, the statement said.

The police did not identify the man but said he was a former head of a major technology company in Shanghai.

He is alleged, along with associates, to be behind a hacking group called “Hafnium” which was accused of penetrating tens of thousands of Microsoft Exchange email servers in 2021.

The hacker team allegedly “exploited computer flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server software” related to e-mail messages, to “target a law firm and other entities.”

Attendees walk past an electronic display showing recent cyberattacks in China at the China Internet Security Conference in Beijing, 12 September, 2017

At the time, Microsoft called the group a “highly skilled and sophisticated actor.”

Italian police said the suspect was arrested on a warrant from Texas, hailing an “excellent and well-established cooperation” with the FBI as a reason for the operation’s success.

Xu, who had been held in prison in Busto Arsizio near Milan since his arrest, has rejected the accusations.

“I am living the most difficult period of my life, I risk suffering an unfair trial in the USA and physical and psychological ill-treatment. Do not extradite me,” Xu told judge Veronica Tallarida.

“All my personal data, email, contacts remained with the company I worked for when I left it in 2018,” the Chinese national said in his defence, saying he may be the victim of a case of mistaken identity.