Angelo Martino was hired to save ransomware victims from the BlackCat gang. He was working for BlackCat the whole time.
A Florida federal court sentenced Martino, 41, of Land O’Lakes, to 70 months for conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce by extortion under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, which carries a 20-year maximum. He pleaded guilty in April to a one-count information; the Justice Department announced the sentence this week.
Martino worked as a ransomware negotiator for DigitalMint, brought in by client companies to talk down BlackCat’s ransom demands. Starting in April 2023, he opened a side channel through Tox messenger and an “intermediary chat” tab hidden inside the BlackCat affiliate panel, feeding attackers his own clients’ insurance policy limits and negotiating strategy, without the clients or DigitalMint knowing. He took a cut of the ransom in crypto for every deal he sabotaged.
By May 2023 he’d gotten BlackCat affiliate access himself and brought in two more cybersecurity insiders, Kevin Martin and Ryan Goldberg, to deploy the ransomware directly against new victims. Both got 48 months.
The industry’s entire pitch rests on victims trusting a negotiator with their insurance limits mid-crisis. That trust model just took its biggest hit yet.
DigitalMint says it fired Martino and cooperated with the FBI once notified.
James Okafor