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Kirill Victorovich Firsov, a Russian citizen who administered the cyber storefront platform DEER.IO, pleaded guilty in January 2021 to unauthorized solicitation of access devices. He was sentenced to 30 months in custody in May 2021. The plea, the earlier FBI seizure of DEER.IO, and the later sentence are separate stages of the case.
Who pleaded guilty in the Deer.io case?
Firsov pleaded guilty on January 21, 2021, to unauthorized solicitation of access devices, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(6). In the filed plea agreement, he admitted administering DEER.IO through March 7, 2020. The U.S. Department of Justice’s plea announcement reported the plea; the filed plea agreement records his admission.
What was DEER.IO?
DOJ described DEER.IO as a Russian-based platform that offered turnkey storefront design and hosting. Users could use its shops to sell harvested account credentials, hacked servers, and criminal services. U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer, speaking for the Southern District of California at the time, called it “one-stop shopping for criminals.”
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The FBI seized DEER.IO under a court order, with the seizure announced on March 24, 2020. The government said investigators found no legitimate businesses advertising through the storefronts and described FBI purchases of personal information from one shop. In the seizure announcement, FBI Special Agent in Charge Omer Meisel characterized DEER.IO as “the largest centralized platform” promoting and facilitating sales of compromised accounts, personally identifiable information, and hacked computers. That was Meisel’s description, not an independently established ranking. The DOJ seizure announcement covers the operation and allegations at that stage.
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How many shops did DEER.IO have, and how much did it sell?
The DOJ announcements give different shop counts, with different attributions. The March 2020 seizure announcement said DEER.IO claimed to have more than 24,000 active shops. The January 2021 plea announcement instead described approximately 3,000 active shops as of March 2020. The available announcements do not reconcile those figures, so they should not be treated as equivalent counts.
| Figure | What it describes | Attribution |
|---|---|---|
| More than 24,000 active shops | A platform claim reported in March 2020 | DEER.IO, as reported by DOJ in its 2020 seizure announcement |
| Approximately 3,000 active shops | Shops as of March 2020 | DOJ’s January 2021 plea announcement |
| More than $17 million in sales | Reported platform-wide sales | DOJ announcements in 2020 and 2021 |
| At least $1.2 million | U.S.-based stolen information the government could show had been sold through the platform | DOJ’s May 2021 sentencing announcement; the parties agreed the government could show this amount |
The $1.2 million figure is narrower than the platform-wide sales figure: it concerns U.S.-based stolen information, not DEER.IO’s total sales.
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What penalty did the charge carry, and what sentence did Firsov receive?
DOJ’s January 2021 plea announcement said the offense carried a statutory maximum of ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine. That was the maximum penalty stated for the charge, not the punishment ultimately imposed.
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