The owner of ransomware remediation company MonsterCloud has been charged with allegedly defrauding ransomware victims by secretly paying their attackers for decryptors while claiming to use proprietary technology to recover encrypted data.

Zohar Pinhasi, 50, also known as “Zack Silver” and “Zack Green,” was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York on September 23 and arraigned Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn.

He is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud in connection with an alleged ransomware decryption scheme that prosecutors say ran from June 2018 to June 2023.