When Vyacheslav Penchukov, better known by his online alias “Tank,” walks into the interview room at Englewood Correctional Facility, it’s hard to reconcile his cheerful grin with the destruction he left behind.
At 39, the Ukrainian hacker has spent nearly two decades at the heart of international cyber-crime — leading two of the most notorious digital gangs in modern history.
“I’m a friendly guy. I make friends easily,” he says, with the same disarming charm that once won him powerful allies and kept him a step ahead of the law.
Penchukov’s story mirrors the evolution of cyber-crime itself: from early internet heists targeting small businesses to today’s ransomware networks that paralyze hospitals and corporations. His journey began in Donetsk, Ukraine, where he moved from video-game cheat forums to leading the Jabber Zeus crew — a group that stole millions by infecting bank systems and siphoning funds directly from victims’ accounts.
The Rise and Fall of a Digital Don
By 2009, Tank was already on the FBI’s radar. The Jabber Zeus gang had looted the accounts of small companies, local governments, and charities across the world — including more than 600 victims in the UK, who collectively lost £4 million in three months.
Penchukov lived fast. By day, he led heists from a modest office; by night, he was DJ Slava Rich, spinning tracks in Donetsk clubs. “Cyber-crime was easy money,” he recalls. “Banks didn’t know how to stop it.”
But when investigators cracked the group’s encrypted chats, they identified him through a personal detail — the birth of his daughter. An FBI-led operation, Trident Breach, followed. Penchukov escaped arrest thanks to a tip-off and a high-powered Audi S8. “I jumped the red light and lost them,” he says, half-boasting, half-nostalgic.
His luck ran out in 2022, when Swiss police arrested him after a decade on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. “They put me on the ground in front of my kids. There were snipers on the roof,” he recalls, still bitter.
Evil Corp and the New Age of Cybercrime
After the fall of Jabber Zeus, Penchukov turned to a darker chapter: ransomware. Between 2018 and 2022, he joined and helped lead new cyber-extortion networks like Maze, Egregor, Conti, and IcedID.
He and his teams infected more than 150,000 computers worldwide, including a 2020 attack on the University of Vermont Medical Center that shut down 5,000 hospital systems and caused over $30 million in losses.
Penchukov insists he wasn’t directly responsible — “I just admitted it to reduce my sentence,” he says — but his role in coordinating ransomware affiliates is well documented. U.S. prosecutors have ordered him to pay $54 million in restitution.
He also confirms what Western intelligence agencies have long suspected: that Russian hackers often maintain ties with state security services. “Of course,” he shrugs. “Some guys talked about their FSB handlers.”
The Hacker’s Code and Its Collapse
In prison, Penchukov claims to be reforming — learning English and French, playing sports, and earning diplomas. “Not smart enough,” he jokes, “I’m in prison.”
But his reflections are tinged with cynicism. “You can’t make friends in cyber-crime,” he says. “Tomorrow, they’ll be informants.”
His one moment of remorse comes when describing a ransomware attack on a disabled children’s charity. Yet even now, he rationalizes the broader damage: “Western companies can afford it. Insurance covers everything.”
For victims like Leslee and Frank, who lost $12,000 from their family luggage business, the pain never faded. “It was disbelief and horror,” Leslee says. “We had no idea what had happened.”
Today, Tank serves two nine-year sentences, a far cry from the luxury life he once flaunted. His former partner, Russian hacker Maksim “Aqua” Yakubets, remains free — still one of the FBI’s most wanted.
“Paranoia is a constant friend of hackers,” Penchukov muses. “If you do it long enough, you lose your edge.”
