French police apprehends suspect in Finnish therapy data hacking

HELSINKI (Reuters) – French police apprehended on Friday a 25-year-old Finnish man suspected of breaching patient records of some 33,000 psychotherapy clients in Finland, the Finnish central criminal police said.

Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation had issued an international arrest warrant for the man believed to have stolen private records of the patients of a Helsinki-based psychotherapy centre.

The suspect has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

He is believed to have blackmailed patients and to have published some data online, including accounts of private and traumatic events, police said.

Immediate measures have been initiated to extradite him to Finland, the police added.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen, editing by Terje Solsvik)