The man who appeared before an American judge on Monday, January 3, would be a “real gold mine” for American intelligence.
Christopher Krebs, the former director of the US Cybersecurity Agency, interviewed by CNN, welcomed the capture of Vladislav Klyushin, adding that it represented a “big blow”.
This Russian would be "the close to the power of higher level that the United States managed to stop for a very long time", adds the economic chain Bloomberg.
However, the indictment drawn up by the FBI against the 40-year-old hardly shows the importance he has in the eyes of Washington.
He is portrayed there as a white collar criminal, high profile certainly, but nothing more.
Serial insider trading
Vladislav Klyushin, CEO of Russian IT security company MT-13, is charged with fraud, insider trading and illegal intrusion into computer systems.
The American authorities suspect him of having hacked the servers of two companies which help large listed groups to transmit certain financial forms to the authorities.
The Russian businessman and four of his associates have thus managed to get their hands on the financial results of several big names on Wall Street, such as Tesla or Snap (creator of the Snapchat social network) before they were made public .
Enough to achieve, between 2018 and 2020, a series of insider trading that would have allowed them to earn nearly $ 83 million on the stock market, according to the FBI.
Amounts that make his trial a leading court case.
This arrest “shows that the FBI is working tirelessly to track down criminals like Vladislav Klyushin wherever they are in the world,” the federal agency said.
But from there to pushing the former boss of the US Cybersecurity Agency to qualify Vladislav Klyushin as a potential “gold mine”?
From there to charge one of the stars of the FBI, BJ Kang, with the investigation?
It was this agent who led the investigations that led to the arrest, in 2008, of Bernie Madoff, the financier behind one of the biggest scams in American history, and, a year more later, to that of American businessman Raj Rajaratnam, nicknamed “the king of insider trading”.
In reality, Vladislav Klyushin represents a much bigger fish for the United States and he could allow Washington “to obtain the most complete details to date on Russian cyberespionage operations, including the hack of Democratic Party servers. ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, ”says Bloomberg.
Close to the Russian master of propaganda
This businessman is, in fact, very well introduced into the first circles of Russian power.
He is known to be close to Alexey Gromov, an adviser to Vladimir Putin described as the maker of the Russian propaganda machine.
MT-13, the company of Vladislav Klyushin, has concluded lucrative contracts with the Kremlin, the general prosecutor's office, the FSB (one of the main Russian intelligence agencies), the city of Moscow and the National Guard.
This IT security group provides very specific services such as computer server penetration tests - which are exercises to check a computer system for vulnerabilities - and simulations of large-scale computer attacks.
The company MT-13 has also developed the Katyusha software, used since 2016 by the Russian authorities to monitor the media, underlines Meduza, one of the main independent news sites in Russian language.
Vladislav Klyushin is also suspected, in a personal capacity, of being the administrator of Nesygar, one of the most popular Russian-speaking information channels on Telegram messaging (more than 330,000 subscribers).
A link that the businessman has always vigorously denied, going so far as to condemn the investigation site Proekt which, in 2018, was the first to suggest that Vladislav Klyushin was using Nesygar to disseminate pro-Putin propaganda on Telegram.
So many hats and doors of entry that would allow the founder of MT-13 "to have access to information on the secret campaigns of the GRU", affirms the Bloomberg channel, which assures to have spoken to several sources close to the Russian intelligence.
The GRU - the main military intelligence service - is suspected of being behind some of Russia's most successful overseas operations, such as the attempt to poison ex-Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018 or the efforts deployed in favor of Donald Trump during the 2016 American presidential campaign.
Battle over the extradition of Vladislav Klyushin
The stake would be clear for the Americans: if they manage to "return Vladislav Klyushin, he could confirm the conclusions of the American intelligence services on the Russian interference during the presidential campaign of 2016", affirms Christopher Krebs to CNN.
Enough to refresh even more the already very tense relations between Moscow and Washington.
>> Read also on France 24: The GRU, Putin's not-so-secret weapon
No wonder in this context that Russia has done everything to prevent the businessman from falling into the hands of the United States.
The battle for the extradition of Vladislav Klyushin demonstrates the importance he has for both sides.
The boss of MT-13 had, in fact, been arrested in Switzerland in March 2021, at the request of the Americans, barely two hours after his arrival on Swiss territory where he planned to spend two weeks skiing with his wife and children. five children.
A few days later, Moscow sent the Swiss authorities an extradition request assuring that Vladislav Klyushin was accused of “fraud” in Russia.
"A method used more and more often by the Russians in recent years when important nationals are prosecuted abroad," said Bloomberg.
Problem: The United States had submitted its own extradition request a day earlier, says the Moscow Times.
A diplomatic battle then began between Russia, the United States and Switzerland around the fate of Vladislav Klyushin.
The question of his extradition would even have been on the menu of negotiations at the Geneva summit in June 2021 between Vladimir Poutin and his American counterpart Joe Biden.
The Russians would have asked that the businessman be handed over to them, which would have cut short negotiations on a prisoner exchange "because Washington did not want to hear about it", assures Bloomberg.
Finally, the Swiss authorities handed over the precious Russian prisoner to the Americans on December 18, 2021.
Even if Vladislav Klyushin refused to cooperate with the American authorities, it is a big blow for Moscow.
When "someone like him is arrested, all operations of which he was aware must be considered compromised," assured CNN Holden Triplett, a former FBI agent stationed in Russia.
The summary of the week
France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 application
google-play-badge_FR