Largest Russia-West prisoner swap since Cold War features top hackers

Part of the prisoner exchange between the USA and Russia included two Russian hackers – Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznev. According to the site arstechnica.com, both were convicted of serious financial crimes in the United States.

The US authorities stated that Klyushin "convicted by a federal jury of securities fraud, wire fraud, gaining unauthorized access to computers, and conspiracy to commit those crimes. Klyushin was arrested in Sion, Switzerland in March 2021 and extradited to the United States in December 2021." Meanwhile, Seleznev, according to federal prosecutors, "has harmed more victims and caused more financial loss than perhaps any other defendant that has appeared before the court."

According to the US government, Klyushin made tens of millions of dollars shorting American companies. He used stolen data from hacking attacks for this purpose. He was arrested in 2021 after flying to Switzerland on a private jet just before boarding a helicopter that was supposed to take him skiing in the Alps. Vladislav Klyushin came from a poor family, worked from a young age, and eventually graduated with a PhD.

He worked in various places, eventually landing at the Moscow-based company M-13, which specialized in penetration testing and "advanced persistent threat (APT) emulation," meaning M-13 could be hired to perform hacker-style actions. M-13 also provided investment advice – a person who opted for their services could earn money, leaving the company with 60% of the profits.

It was probably no coincidence, M-13 "had an incredible win rate of 68%" in stock market transactions, translating to huge profits – from CAD 12 million to CAD 138 million. This means 900% profit at a time when the market was earning an average of 25%.

Generating profits for M-13 was possible thanks to the actions of hackers. They broke into the computers of "filing agents" Donnelly Financial and Toppan Merrill. These companies had the quarterly reports of large firms a few days before publication. The hackers from M-13 stole the files, read them, and made the right transactions. Klyushin was able to made tens of millions of dollars from 2018 to 2020.

Roman Seleznev specialized in more common cybercrimes. From 2009 to 2013, he stole credit card numbers, bundled them, and sold them online. The operation was massive, catching the attention of American law enforcement.

Seleznev broke into the computers of point-of-sale systems, often targeting small businesses. He stole credit card data when companies recorded regular transactions. He allegedly made "tens of millions of dollars" from this, and his victims lost over CAD 228 million in the entire operation. He also drove entire companies to bankruptcy.

Like Klyushin, Seleznev couldn’t resist spending money outside Russia. In 2014, he was arrested in the Maldives. He had a laptop with over 1.7 million stolen credit card numbers. Seleznev felt safe because the Maldives did not have an extradition treaty with the USA, but an agreement between the governments made the arrest possible.

Seleznev was sentenced to several terms, the longest being 27 years. In a letter submitted to one of the courts, the criminal partially blamed his actions on a difficult childhood – citing his mother's alcohol problems and that he was once the victim of a bombing in Morocco. He claimed to be a "desperate child who grew up into a desperate man."

In his statements, Roman Seleznev stressed that he regrets his actions. He worked in a Georgia prison for several hours a day, and he allocated his earnings to restitution. He said he wanted to feel like he was repaying his debt to American society. So why is there a desire to retrieve this prisoner? Roman Seleznev is the son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, and a political ally of Vladimir Putin.