Montenegro extradited Amir Barati, a dual citizen of Iran and Turkey, to the United States to face charges related to a hacking campaign.

Montenegro extradited Amir Barati, a dual citizen of Iran and Turkey, to the United States to face charges related to a hacking campaign.

US prosecutors say this campaign was carried out with the aim of stealing research and intellectual property from US universities and in accordance with the interests of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and other Iranian institutions.

The 40-year-old Berti was arrested in Montenegro in June and is one of 17 people indicted by the US Department of Justice in connection with the alleged cyber operation linked to the "Mebane Institute".

The United States Department of Justice announced in late August that this hacking campaign targeted about 150 American universities and nearly 180 universities in other countries and stole their scientific data and intellectual property by infiltrating thousands of email accounts of university professors.

According to US prosecutors, hackers stole more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property. American universities spent about $3.4 billion to prepare and access the materials that were the targets of these attacks.