Russian MP's son hit with longest-ever jail term for cybercrime in US

A Russian MP's son receives the longest sentence ever imposed in the US for a cybercrime after the theft of millions of credit card numbers.

A screenshot of a tutorial posted online by Russian hacker Roman Seleznev describing how to steal credit card data. Source: AP

The son of a Russian MP has been jailed for 27 years in the US after being convicted of a cyber assault on thousands of US businesses, marking America's longest-ever hacking-related sentence.

Roman Seleznev, 32, was found guilty by a Seattle jury in 2016 of perpetrating a scheme that prosecutors said involved hacking into point-of-sale computers to steal credit card numbers and caused $US170 million in losses to US firms.

The Russian government has maintained that his arrest in 2014 in the Maldives was illegal.

(File Image) Valery Seleznev, a prominent Russian MP and father of Roman Seleznev, who was arrested on bank fraud charges in the US. Source: AP

It issued a statement on Friday criticising the sentence and said it believed Seleznev's lawyer planned to appeal.

"We continue to believe that the arrest of the Russian citizen Roman Seleznev who de facto was kidnapped on the territory of a third country is unlawful," the Russian Embassy in Washington said in a post on its Facebook page.

Seleznev is the son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the Russian parliament.

The sentence was imposed by Judge Richard A Jones of the Western District of Washington.

Prosecutors said that from October 2009 to October 2013 Seleznev stole credit card numbers from more than 500 US businesses, transferred the data to servers in Virginia, Russia and the Ukraine and eventually sold the information on criminal "carding" websites.

Seleznev faces separate charges pending in federal courts in Nevada and Georgia.

His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.