Ivanov declined to be interviewed for this series. But he has told authorities that he was part of two hacking cells -- one with Gorshkov and Michael and one with several other associates. He said it was the latter group that had done more serious damage -- hacking a D.C.-based company called E-Money Inc. that provides technology for electronic payments and other companies.

Indeed, while prosecutors had characterized Gorshkov as the ringleader of the Expert Group, Ivanov said that wasn't true.

Lawyer John Lundin, who represents Gorshkov and who has reviewed the transcripts of Ivanov's interviews said Ivanov implicated Gorshkov only "in one small portion of his criminal activity."

"Ivanov had been involved in computer 'cracking' for a long time, well before he met Gorshkov, with a number of other associates," Lundin said.

In a letter from prison, Gorshkov wrote that he was not responsible for some of the crimes he was convicted of. "All the evidence presented by government shows that the activities I was charged with didn't stop after my arrest and closing of my company. Whoever was doing it, was still doing it," he wrote.

The FBI's computer crimes unit, in cooperation with the Secret Service's financial crimes unit, has been able to piece together much of the Expert Group extortion network, complete with real names, as well as some telephone numbers and addresses, of those alleged perpetrators.

But while U.S. authorities would like to aggressively move to break up the hackers' club once and for all, local authorities in Russia once again have not responded to their requests. The ruse that U.S. officials used to get Gorshkov and Ivanov to come to the United States in November 2000, a fake company that promised them legitimate jobs, isn't likely to work again.

"There is impunity for some violators of law who exist in the borderless space of the Internet," acknowledged Igor Lukashev, a former member of the Russian parliament who is now a legislative staffer pushing for tougher laws on cybercrime.

Hacking is illegal in Russia, just as it is in the United States; enforcement is where the countries differ. Here, it's sometimes more akin to a getting a parking ticket than a serious felony -- something that on paper is wrong but not morally reprehensible. Local investigations also are hampered because authorities cite other, higher priorities.

That means many hackers are able to operate in what are essentially safe havens. In an interconnected world like the Internet, a few safe havens are all that is needed to wreak havoc on every country.

Dmitry Chepchugov, chief of the high-tech crimes administration for the Moscow police and a member of the cybercrime subcommittee for the Group of Eight, an organization of the world's largest industrialized nations, said both governments recognize at their highest levels that better cooperation is necessary. It doesn't always work out that way, though, in practice.