US puts Russian businessman behind hack-and-trade scheme on trial

The U.S. has put on trial Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin, who owns M-13, an information technology firm associated with the Russian government, for his involvement in a hack-and-trade scheme that resulted in the theft of nearly $90 million, according to The Associated Press. Klyushin and four other co-conspirators who remain at-large have been accused of launching a malware attack against two U.S.-based companies sought for Securities and Exchange Commission filings to exfiltrate financial disclosures from Microsoft, Tesla, Sketchers, Kohls, Ultra Beauty, and hundreds other firms prior to their filing to the SEC. Such data was leveraged by the defendants to trade using brokerage accounts, according to prosecutors. Meanwhile, Klyushin's attorney Maksim Nemtsev argued that his client was successful even prior to entering stock trading, while downplaying M-13's connections with the Russian government. "Theres nothing illegal about being Russian, about having wealth, about having an IT company that contracts with the government," said Nemtsev