{"id":242626,"date":"2026-07-12T19:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/12\/ransomware-negotiator-gets-6-years-for-assisting-scammers\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T01:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T05:05:12","slug":"ransomware-negotiator-gets-6-years-for-assisting-scammers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/12\/ransomware-negotiator-gets-6-years-for-assisting-scammers\/","title":{"rendered":"Ransomware Negotiator Gets 6 Years for Assisting Scammers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ransomware Negotiator Gets 6 Years for Assisting Scammers<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/ransomware-negotiator-gets-6-years-in-prison-for-assisting-scammers\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-12 19:50:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.pymnts.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. A cybersecurity expert has been sentenced to prison for helping criminals scam his clients.<\/p>\n

Angelo Martino, 41, who had served as a ransomware negotiator for the company Digital Mint, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison last week, according to an announcement from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
\n\u201cHe was hired to help victims in a moment of crisis,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Qui\u00f1ones for the Southern District of Florida.\u00a0
\n\u201cInstead, Martino betrayed them, fed their confidential negotiating positions to ransomware criminals, and helped squeeze them for more money.\u201d
\nCourt documents say Martino abused his position and worked with the operators of the BlackCat ransomware group to extort five different victims. The DOJ says Martino was paid by BlackCat attackers to share confidential information about the negotiating position and strategy of his employer\u2019s customers, letting the gang maximize the ransoms.
\nAccording to the DOJ, Martino conspired with former cybersecurity professionals: Kevin Martin, 36, of Texas, who was hired as Martino\u2019s coworker after the crimes began, and Ryan Goldberg, 41, of Georgia, who worked for another cybersecurity firm. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter successfully extorting one victim for approximately $1.2 million in Bitcoin, the men split their share of the ransom three ways and laundered the funds through various means,\u201d the DOJ\u2019s announcement added.
\nMartino pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to interfere with interstate commerce through extortion. Martin and Goldberg were sentenced in May to 48 months in prison after pleading guilty in December.
\nThe DOJ says law enforcement has\u00a0 seized $10 million of assets from Martino, including digital currency, vehicles, a food truck, and a luxury fishing boat obtained through the scheme. A hearing in September is due to determine how much restitution he must pay.
\nA report on the sentencing by Ars Technica said that Martino had pleaded guilty and sought a 24-month sentence, arguing he had \u201cprovided substantial assistance that contributed to the indictment and conviction of two co-defendants.\u201d
\nThe job of negotiating with hackers has become an in-demand one, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year, now that ransomware \u201chas become a structured, global industry,\u201d with attackers now employing \u201cdouble extortion,\u201d threatening to leak stolen data if payment is not made.
\nResearch by PYMNTS Intelligence shows hackers are increasingly targeting middle market companies, which depend on third-party cloud providers, software-as-a-service platforms, managed service and logistics providers, which can leave them open to attack.
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ransomware Negotiator Gets 6 Years for Assisting Scammers https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/ransomware-negotiator-gets-6-years-in-prison-for-assisting-scammers\/ Publish Date: 2026-07-12 19:50:00 Source Domain:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":242627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ransomware-guy-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-242626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242628,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242626\/revisions\/242628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}