A former ransomware negotiator has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for conspiring to extort healthcare and other companies using BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware.
Angelo Martino, 41, worked as a ransomware negotiator for an incident response company where he was tasked with helping clients minimize ransom payments after cyberattacks. Instead, prosecutors said, he secretly fed confidential negotiation details — including clients’ maximum payment thresholds — to BlackCat affiliates in exchange for a cut of the ransoms, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida reviewed by Becker’s.
Five victims that hired his firm and were unknowingly assigned to Mr. Martino paid a combined $75.3 million in ransoms between April and September 2023, prosecutors said. Mr. Martino separately conspired with fellow cybersecurity professionals Ryan Goldberg and Kevin Martin to deploy BlackCat ransomware directly against victims, including a California physician’s office, a Maryland-based pharmaceutical company and a Florida-based medical device firm, extorting $1.2 million in cryptocurrency from the device maker.
U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore imposed the sentence, plus three years of supervised release, following Mr. Martino’s guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce by extortion. Prosecutors had sought a sentence between 70 and 87 months, noting Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Martin each received 48-month sentences in April for their roles in the scheme. Restitution has yet to be determined.
Law enforcement previously seized about $10 million in assets from Mr. Martino, including cryptocurrency, vehicles, a food truck and a luxury fishing boat, per the Justice Department.
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