How Russian Hackers Stole Millions From American Investors – NBC New York

WASHINGTON — The White House announced Thursday a prisoner swap between the United States, Russia and other countries. As part of the historic deal, the Russian government released high-ranking Americans held captive in the country, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who had been in a Russian prison for more than a year.

This trafficking also involved a number of Russians who had been arrested for various crimes and held in prisons in the United States and other countries.

Among that group was a wealthy young Russian entrepreneur named Vladislav Klyushin, who was incarcerated in federal prison for his role in one of the most damaging insider trading schemes in Wall Street history.

For much of the past year, CNBC has been working on a documentary about the spectacular rise and fall of Klyushin and his business empire.

The story begins in early 2021, when a private jet carrying a promising young Russian oligarch and his wife lands at the tiny Sion airport in the Swiss Alps.

Sion is the gateway to the world-famous ski resort of Zermatt, where the world’s elite flock to ski and party. But the airport is an hour’s drive from the slopes, so the wealthy walk across the tarmac and board helicopters to take them straight to the resort.

The young oligarch was at the top of his game. He had built a successful business in Moscow and cultivated connections at the highest levels of the Russian government.

His efforts earned him the ultimate prize: he worked for the Russian president’s office. Vladimir Poutine.

What the oligarch did not know was that American law enforcement had been monitoring his flight since he left Moscow.

Or that they planned to capture him and charge him with crimes that go to the heart of the American financial system.

The man on board the private jet in Switzerland was Vladislav Klyushin, and he owned a cybersecurity company in Moscow called M-13.

But M-13 was just a front for Klyushin’s real business: hacking into American companies and stealing confidential information, then using it to make trades on Wall Street before that information was made public.

It was a multi-layered crime: insider trading enabled by illegal computer hacking. And it made Klyushin very rich. The victims of his crimes are investors in iconic American companies like Tesla, Roku and Skechers.

Welcome to the dangerous world of the global financial system. Here, markets are just another space where great powers can demonstrate their strength and weaken their rivals.

The Kremlin considers American financial markets to be one of the country’s major assets and therefore a prime target for attacks.

“This is a war that is going on between Russia and the West. Finance, banking and the financial sector itself are just one of the battlefields,” said a former senior official in Russia’s FSB intelligence service. CNBC granted him anonymity to describe the crimes in detail because he fears for his safety.

CNBC spent months investigating the criminal network, which represents one of the most damaging episodes of insider trading in Wall Street history.

But it’s not over yet.

Rather, our reporting has revealed a persistent and ongoing threat to American businesses, investors, and the markets themselves.

The documentary above, “Putin’s Trader,” is the result of that year-long project. It features exclusive access to the FBI agents and U.S. prosecutors tasked with dismantling the criminal organization, as well as new reporting on the oligarch’s incredible lifestyle and the friends who profited from their illegal trade. A six-part podcast series, “The Crimes of Putin’s Trader,” will air on August 15.

As for Klyushin, federal prosecutor Steven Frank said he was a lot like the kind of people we prosecute every day for white-collar crimes here in the United States. Who don’t really need to turn to white-collar crime to succeed because they’re already successful.

“He was wealthy. He had a very nice house. He had very nice cars. He had a country house,” said Frank, who worked on the case. “But he wanted more, like many of our defendants, and he found a way to get easy money. And he took it.”

Watch “Putin’s Trader” for the full story.