Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — The US Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions on Uzbek national Azidzhan Mamashoyev, whom Washington considers a participant in a cyber-weapons trafficking network.
Alongside him, three additional individuals and three companies were added to the sanctions lists on 24 February. According to US authorities, Mamashoyev collaborated with St. Petersburg-based entrepreneur Sergei Zelenyuk — the founder of Operation Zero (LLC Matrix), a company specializing in the trade of exploits and zero-day vulnerabilities.
Mamashoyev also founded Advance Security Solutions in the United Arab Emirates, which similarly operated as a broker in the cyberattack space. The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Zelenyuk himself to the sanctions list as well. The State Department describes his company as a seller of exploits "to various clients, including the Russian government."
In 2025, Operation Zero offered to pay up to four million dollars for a hack of the Telegram messaging app. To conduct business with countries across Asia and the Middle East while circumventing sanctions against Russian banks, Zelenyuk registered another entity in the UAE — Special Technology Centre — which has also been placed under restrictive measures.
According to the Treasury Department, between 2022 and 2025, Australian national Peter Williams stole eight exploits from his employer — a US defense contractor — and sold them to Zelenyuk's structures for 1.3 million dollars.
In addition to Mamashoyev and Zelenyuk, sanctions were imposed on the latter's associate Marina Vasanovich, as well as Oleg Kucherov, a member of the Trickbot hacking group, which Western intelligence services have linked to Russian intelligence. US authorities believe both were directly involved in Zelenyuk's network operations.
