Putin's Trader: Inside Russia's Insider Trading Scandal

On March 21, 2021, Russian oligarch Vladislav Klyushin and his wife arrived in the Swiss Alps for a wedding anniversary celebration, unaware they were under U.S. law enforcement surveillance. Klyushin, a successful businessman with ties to the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin, was implicated in a major insider trading scheme. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) noted a pattern of suspicious stock market activities involving companies like Tesla, Snapchat, and Roku, leading the FBI to investigate. Veteran FBI agent B.J. Kang and prosecutor Steven Frank uncovered that foreign traders were illicitly profiting by hacking into financial data, facilitated by filing agents. These agents assist companies in submitting reports to the SEC, and hackers obtained access through compromised login credentials, using the information to execute profitable trades. The FBI traced the operations to Moscow, identifying a key hacker, Ivan Yermakov, who had ties to the Russian military intelligence agency, GRU. Investigators discovered extensive evidence linking Yermakov and Klyushin's M13 company to these activities. Despite sophisticated operations, a series of mistakes and clues eventually led to Klyushin’s arrest in Switzerland. In February 2023, Klyushin was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison, while Yermakov remains at large. Despite this, the case highlights broader concerns about ongoing financial espionage by Russia against the West.