Counter | Julius Kivimäki was imprisoned on suspicion of data breach of Vastaamo

Western Uusimaa the district court has imprisoned Julius Kivimäki Psykoterapiakeskus Vastaamo is suspected of a data breach. The detention session was held on Tuesday morning.

Kivimäki entered the courtroom through a side door with his lawyer, accompanied by two police officers. He didn’t hide his face from the cameras and smiled.

As expected, the district court decided to deal with the police’s detention request behind closed doors from the public.

Stone Hill was imprisoned on a total of eight suspected crimes.

The Central Criminal Police demanded the arrest of 25-year-old Kivimäki on probable cause, suspected of, among other things, attempted extortion, aggravated data breach and aggravated dissemination of information infringing private life in September 2020.

He was imprisoned with probable cause on suspicion of these crimes, as well as extortion, attempted extortion, data breach, breach of confidentiality and tampering with evidence.

In the last three items of criminal suspicions, Turku is indicated as the crime scene.

Kivimäki, who was staying abroad, was handed over from France to Finland on Friday. He was waiting for Tuesday’s custody trial in Vantaa prison.

Kivimäki previously used the first name Julius, but his name is mentioned in the detention information Alexander.

Stone Hill was missing from the Finnish authorities abroad, until the French police arrested him from a private residence near Paris at the beginning of February on the basis of a European arrest warrant.

Kivimäki was imprisoned in absentia at the Helsinki District Court already in October 2022 on suspicion of aggravated extortion attempt, aggravated data breach and aggravated dissemination of information that violates private life. At the same time, a European arrest warrant was issued for him and he was wanted.

According to the French police, Kivimäki was arrested in Courbevoie, near Paris, in connection with a regular police mission. According to the French police chief interviewed by HS, the task was related to a report received by the police about an argument over an Airbnb rental apartment.

In the apartment, the police found a man who presented them with an Eastern European identity card. According to the French police interviewed by HS, the Eastern European name used by the man had already been added to the police database, where it was linked to the man’s actual personal profile and the international wanted notice.

The reception desk the data breach was revealed in the fall of 2020, when customers’ sensitive information began to appear on the dark web. The information of thousands of customers has ended up online. There are at least around 23,000 people who have filed a criminal report in the case.

The preliminary investigation is now continuing with, among other things, the questioning of Kivimäki. Director of investigations Marko Leponen said earlier that the questioning of the suspect will be started this week.

STT reported in November that Kivimäki is suspected of, among other things, a data breach in Turku as well. Director of investigations Kaarle Lönnroth said at the time that the target of the suspected crimes is not a large or public entity, but an individual and a company. Lönnroth does not comment further on the investigation at this stage. Tuesday’s detention session also discussed demands related to the Turku investigation.

Kivimäki’s lawyer Peter Jaari has said that Kivimäki denies having committed any crime.

Stone Hill has previously been convicted of numerous data breaches. He was already guilty of computer crimes as a teenager.

In 2015, he was sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence for cybercrimes committed in 2012–2013.

Last November, the Helsinki Court of Appeal sentenced Kivimäki to conditional imprisonment for the crimes committed in 2014. Minor Kivimäki had, among other things, called or incited others to make unfounded emergency calls to the US police.

HS has published the name of the criminal suspect already in the preliminary investigation phase due to the exceptional nature and social importance of the criminal case.