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The money Vladislav Klyushin made from stolen financial information literally piled up, filling a safe with stacks of $100 bills. At one point, he was amassing more than $3 million in illicit gains.
In less than three years, Klyushin’s cybersecurity scam had netted more than $93 million. His company, M-13, served as a front for Russian hackers to steal information under the guise of protecting it, getting their hands on U.S. corporate earnings reports before the rest of the world could see them. They then traded on that insight, buying and selling stocks in well-known American companies like Skechers, Snapchat, and Roku.
Vladislav Klyushin, who was sentenced to nine years in a U.S. prison for conspiring to hack into $93 million worth of trading systems. Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts
M-13 was targeted once. TeslaTesla stole its own pre-packaged earnings report and bought shares based on a historically successful quarter. As soon as the final earnings report was published, Tesla stock prices soared, and Klyushin’s team walked away with another wad of cash.
“[They’re] “They were hacking into these American companies, stealing information day in and day out … and trading it,” said Steven Frank, a federal prosecutor familiar with the case.
His empire had expanded to the point where he was flying on private jets and shaking hands with Russian government officials. But what the oligarch and his team didn’t know was that the FBI was watching them—analyzing how the scam worked and determining what they could do to stop it.
The homepage of Russian cybersecurity firm M-13, which has been stealing financial information from US companies.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts
American journalist Ivan Gershkovich, a former prisoner held by Russia, smiles as he walks with his mother Ella Melman at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Aug. 1, 2024.
Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images
But the biggest threat to American companies, Javers says, is not over. This case is just the latest example of how markets have become another arena for great powers to project their power and undermine their rivals.
“It’s a war going on between Russia and the West,” an unnamed former member of the Russian intelligence service told Javers. “Finance, banking, the financial sector itself is just one of the battlefields.”
In CNBC's original podcast series ““Putin's Merchant Crimes” Javers and his team expose a persistent and ongoing threat to American businesses, investors, and the markets themselves.
“What is at stake now is the integrity of the U.S. capital markets,” Javers added.
Listen to “Crimes of Putin's Trader” on CNBC.com or Other podcast platforms.
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