Julius Kivimäki has a long criminal record of cybercrimes, dating back to age 15. Image: Europol, Juha Kemppainen / Yle, grafiikka: Aalto Puutio / Yle
Helsinki: A hacker suspected of stealing tens of thousands of psychotherapy patient records has been extradited to Finland, his lawyer said on Saturday, after his arrest in France earlier in February.
Lawyer Peter Jaari told AFP the 25-year-old suspect, Julius Kivimaki, was now being held in Vantaa prison near Helsinki.
Kivimaki was arrested in the Paris region on February 3, on the run from a European arrest warrant issued by the Finnish police in October 2022.
The French authorities gave the green light for his extradition last week.
"The aim is to interview the suspect as soon as possible," the head of the investigation, Marko Leponen, said when Kivimaki was arrested.
The probe concerns the 2018 and 2019 hacking of the Finnish company Vastaamo, which manages dozens of psychotherapy centres across the Nordic country.
In the attack, the confidential treatment records of tens of thousands of psychotherapy patients in Finland were stolen and some leaked online, in what the Finnish interior minister called "a shocking act" when the leak came to light in October 2020.
Many patients reported receiving emails with a demand for 200 euros ($236) in bitcoin to prevent the contents of their discussions with therapists from being made public.
After the leak was made public, ministers announced a crisis meeting over the unprecedented data breach, as distressed psychotherapy patients flooded mental health charities.
The Finnish police estimated that there were over 30,000 victims whose data was leaked.
Kivimaki has already been convicted of various counts of cybercrime, fraud, and money laundering, as well as 50,700 data breaches carried out in conjunction with a hacker group in over a hundred different countries.
