Vladislav Klyushin, the owner of a
Moscow-based information technology company that prosecutors said had extensive
ties to the Russian government, was extradited on Saturday from Switzerland to
face conspiracy, securities fraud and other charges in Boston.
Klyushin, who was arrested in Switzerland
in March while on a ski trip, appeared briefly from a Massachusetts jail during
a virtual court hearing. A bail hearing is tentatively set for Thursday.
Prosecutors accused him and others of
trading on corporate earnings reports obtained by hacking into the computer
systems of two vendors that help companies filing quarterly and annual reports
with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. (SEC)
Those companies included IBM, Snap, and
Tesla. Prosecutors said Klyushin, 41, and employees of his company M-13 LLC
placed trades for themselves as well for clients in exchange for a cut of their
profits.
Authorities said the computer systems were
hacked into by Ivan Yermakov, an M-13 employee who was among several Russian
military intelligence officers charged in 2018 with carrying out hacking schemes
to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and target anti-doping agencies.
The scheme in total netted at least $82.5
million from 2018 to 2020, the SEC said in a related lawsuit.
Yermakov remains at large, along with three
other defendants: M-13 director Nikolai Rumiantcev and two Russian businessmen
who prosecutors say traded on the hacked information, Mikhail Irzak and Igor
Sladkov.
They could not be reached for comment.
Klyushin's lawyers have called the case
politically motivated and argued the real reason he was sought was his work and
contacts within the Russian government, which calls the case part of part of a
hunt for Russians by Washington.
But while Acting US Attorney Nathaniel
Mendell stressed Klyushin's "extensive ties" to the Kremlin, he said
authorities did not know at the outset of the two-year probe "where the
facts and investigation would lead us." © Reuters