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cover of episode Sneak Peek: CNBC’s “The Crimes of Putin’s Trader”

Sneak Peek: CNBC’s “The Crimes of Putin’s Trader”

2024/8/15
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AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
#financial industry scandals#political investigations#finance and business#power dynamics#cybersecurity People
D
David Hitchcock
E
Eamon Javers
CNBC 高级华盛顿记者,专注于经济和政治新闻报道。
S
Seth Costow
S
Stephen Frank
Topics
@Eamon Javers : 本播客系列揭露了一起由俄罗斯寡头弗拉迪斯拉夫·克柳申领导的9300万美元内幕交易案。克柳申及其公司M13利用网络战技术窃取美国上市公司(如特斯拉、Snapchat和Roku)的财务信息,并在信息公开前进行交易,从而牟取暴利。此案对美国资本市场的完整性构成严重威胁,也暴露了全球金融体系中存在的危险地下世界。调查人员追查了克柳申及其同伙的活动,包括他们如何窃取信息、进行交易以及如何挥霍其非法所得。 @Stephen Frank : 克柳申在犯罪前已经非常富有,但他仍然贪婪地寻求更多财富,最终走上了犯罪道路。这与美国常见的金融犯罪类似,犯罪动机是贪婪。 @David Hitchcock : 克柳申的犯罪动机是贪婪,这与美国国内的金融犯罪动机相同。 @Seth Costow : 克柳申与其同伙伊万·叶尔米科夫之间存在着密切的合作关系,他们之间的联系在2018年之后迅速加强。 Eamon Javers: 调查人员对克柳申的背景进行了深入调查,发现他与俄罗斯情报和国防领域的高层人士关系密切,这可能为他窃取信息提供了便利。克柳申还获得了俄罗斯的荣誉勋章,并与俄罗斯联邦安全局(FSB)有联系。这些联系表明,克柳申可能利用其在俄罗斯的权力和影响力来实施其犯罪活动。克柳申和叶尔米科夫之间的关系非常密切,他们一起参与奢侈的消费和娱乐活动,并通过短信表达了彼此的友谊。这些信息表明,他们之间存在着深厚的个人联系,这可能促使他们一起实施犯罪活动。

Deep Dive

普京交易员的罪行:9300万美元内幕交易案的惊人内幕

我最近制作了一个名为《普京交易员的罪行》的播客系列,揭露了一起令人震惊的9300万美元内幕交易案。这起案件的核心人物是一位年轻的俄罗斯寡头,弗拉迪斯拉夫·克柳申(Vladislav Klyushin),他利用先进的网络战技术,对美国资本市场发动了一场精心策划的攻击。

克柳申及其公司M13并非普通的网络安全公司。他们暗中窃取美国上市公司(包括特斯拉、Snapchat和Roku等行业巨头)的未公开财务信息,并在信息公开前进行交易,从而获取巨额利润。这起案件的受害者是无数的美国投资者,其影响波及整个美国经济,对我们的退休账户、投资以及企业界的稳定都构成了严重威胁。

这不仅仅是一起普通的内幕交易案,它代表着一种新型的、来自外部的金融攻击。 克柳申利用其在俄罗斯的强大关系网,以及先进的网络技术,绕过了传统的内幕交易模式,对美国资本市场的完整性造成了严重的损害。

调查人员对克柳申及其同伙的活动进行了深入调查。我们追踪了他们如何窃取信息,如何进行交易,以及如何挥霍他们非法获得的巨额财富。 证据显示,克柳申及其团队在瑞士阿尔卑斯山区的奢华度假胜地庆祝结婚纪念日时,美国执法部门已经密切监视了他们的私人飞机。

克柳申在犯罪前就已经非常富有。 联邦检察官斯蒂芬·弗兰克(Stephen Frank)指出,克柳申的行为与美国常见的金融犯罪类似,其根本动机是贪婪。 FBI特别探员大卫·希契科克(David Hitchcock)也认同这一观点,认为克柳申即使已经非常富有,仍然被贪婪驱使,寻求更多财富。

克柳申的得力助手,伊万·叶尔米科夫(Ivan Ermikov),是一位年轻的电脑黑客。检察官塞斯·科斯托(Seth Costow)指出,克柳申和叶尔米科夫之间的关系非常密切,他们之间的合作在2018年之后迅速加强,如同“臭味相投”。 我们掌握的证据包括他们一起参加奢华晚宴、桑拿、高尔夫以及观看世界杯足球赛的照片和视频,甚至还有他们互发短信表达友谊的记录。这些证据表明,他们之间存在着深厚的个人联系,这可能促使他们一起实施犯罪活动。

克柳申与俄罗斯情报和国防领域的高层人士关系密切。 他获得了俄罗斯的荣誉勋章,并与俄罗斯联邦安全局(FSB)有联系。这些联系表明,他可能利用其在俄罗斯的权力和影响力来实施其犯罪活动。 一位不愿透露姓名的俄罗斯前间谍(我们为了保护他免受俄罗斯政府的报复,对他的声音进行了处理)向我们提供了俄罗斯方面的视角,这让我们对整个事件有了更全面的理解。

克柳申的犯罪手法极其狡猾。他们窃取了特斯拉等公司的未公开财务信息,并提前进行交易,从中获利巨大。 例如,在窃取特斯拉的季度财报后,克柳申提前通知其同伙购买特斯拉股票,最终获利巨大。 类似的案例还包括Skechers和Ulta Beauty等公司。

克柳申将非法所得存放在保险箱里,其中一度存放了300万美元现金。 他购买了豪华公寓、游艇等奢侈品,过着纸醉金迷的生活。

这个案件暴露了全球金融体系中存在的危险地下世界,以及网络战技术被用于金融犯罪的严重威胁。 它也提醒我们,在全球化的时代,金融犯罪的跨国性质日益突出,需要国际合作来打击此类犯罪活动。 我们希望通过这个播客系列,能够揭露真相,并为打击此类犯罪提供借鉴。 这起案件的审判结果,以及对克柳申及其同伙的最终判决,将对未来类似案件的处理产生深远的影响。

Chapters
The episode introduces Vladislav Klyushin, a young Russian oligarch who is monitored by U.S. law enforcement for his involvement in a $93 million insider trading scheme.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Hello, Dateline fans. We've got a brand new true crime thriller for you featuring a multi-million dollar criminal enterprise, the FBI agents who took it on, and even a couple of Russian and American spies. I'm CNBC senior Washington correspondent Eamon Javers here with a special sneak peek of my limited podcast series, The Crimes of Putin's Traitor. Take a listen and be sure to follow The Crimes of Putin's Traitor wherever you get your podcasts for full episodes right now.

This is the sound of the private jet runway at tiny Sion Airport high in the Swiss Alps. Sion is the gateway to the famed ski resort of Zermatt with its five-star hotels, luxury shopping and high-end social scene. Even in a private jet though, you can only get so close to the snow-capped mountains. Sion is still an hour's drive from the chairlifts. So the truly wealthy take a short walk across the tarmac and board helicopters to take them directly to the slopes.

And on March 21st, 2021, an up-and-coming young Russian oligarch and his wife touched down here in a chartered private jet on their way to the slopes. It's a wedding anniversary celebration. And at that moment, the oligarch is at the absolute height of his powers. He's personable. He smiles a lot. He's engaging. He's charismatic. That's how he was so successful in business. He's devoted to his family.

He's built a fabulously successful company. He's cultivated connections at the highest levels of the Russian government. And he works for the office of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. But what the oligarch doesn't know is that U.S. law enforcement has been monitoring the flight since it left Moscow. And they're planning to charge him with crimes that go to the heart of the American financial system. It's a breathless moment. You're literally holding your breath.

to see how this is going to play out. American law enforcement believes the oligarch is involved in a brazen $93 million insider trading scheme. And the victims are investors in iconic American companies, including names on the cutting edge of the U.S. economy, like Tesla, Snapchat and Roku.

at stake is the very integrity of American capital markets. We knew that somebody was up to no good, and we knew that the scale of it was pretty big because it was happening quarter after quarter in stock after stock. It's all part of the dangerous underground of the global financial system. In this podcast, we're going to take you inside the operation to track down and try to capture this Russian oligarch.

Along the way, you'll meet the FBI agents who led the investigation and the prosecutors who worked alongside them. We've spent months working to land interviews with all the key players, but the most difficult interview of them all was with a former Russian spy. We'll introduce him to you later in the series. He's a defector who now lives in the United States under an assumed name. I got his cell phone number from a very well-placed U.S. intelligence source.

And after his security team checked me out to verify I was who I said I was, we sat down with this Russian spy at a location inside the United States, which we agreed not to disclose. He's one of the very few people in the world who can give us the Russian perspective on this story.

To protect him from retribution from the Russian government, we're not going to use his name. We've replaced his voice, and someone else is reading the transcript of our conversation. It's a war right now happening between Russia and the West. Finances and banks and financial sector itself is just one of the battlefields. When I heard what he has to say, it changed everything about how I see this story. I'm Eamon Javers from CNBC, and this is The Crimes of Putin's Traitor.

The man at the center of the story is the young Russian oligarch on that private jet heading to the Swiss ski resort. His name is Vladislav Klyushin. His friends call him Vlad. Klyushin is a well-connected businessman who owns a cybersecurity firm in Moscow called M13. But the firm is a front. It's not doing what normal cybersecurity companies do. Behind the scenes, Klyushin's employees aren't always helping companies to protect their data. Sometimes they're stealing it.

They've found a sneaky way to obtain American financial information before it's public and trade in the stock market ahead of the news. And they're making a fortune by pillaging American investors on Wall Street. And Cleutian wants to make a whole lot of money.

Inside the operation, M13's computer screens are flowing with stolen stock market information. Collusion's team pours over American corporate earnings reports before the financial world can see them. At one point, they focus in on Tesla, the electric car company. M13 hackers steal Tesla's draft earnings release and, seeing the results, they buy shares in advance.

Klyushin sends a text to two of the investors in the scheme, giving them a heads up. Pay attention to shares of Tesla now and tomorrow after 1630 and on how much they go up.

After the market closes, Tesla reports its earnings. For Tesla, we're seeing a pop in the after-hour session of more than 12%. But of course, Cleuchan knows what's coming. It's a monster number, more than $6.8 billion in revenue. CEO Elon Musk tells investors on a conference call that it was an incredibly historic quarter. Wall Street is dazzled. It's much better news than traders expected, and Tesla shares soar.

In the second quarter of 2019, the M13 team steals documents showing that sneaker company Skechers is going to surprise the market with positive news. The company was going to beat earnings by about 15 cents per share. The M13 traders buy stock in Skechers, betting that the price will go up. Taking a look at Skechers.

The whole group ends up making more than a million dollars on that single trade. And they're making millions of dollars just sitting at their desks, breaking into these American companies, stealing information day after day after day, and just trading on it. It gets even better with cosmetics company Ulta Beauty.

M13's stolen documents showed the earnings were amiss. And what's worse for shareholders, the company's updated its financial guidance downward.

The M13 gang shorts the stock, betting it's going to go down. Tanking is the right word. Ulta Beauty shares down 20% on a rough second quarter report. They're right. Ulta's price plummeted by 30% when that news came out. For M13, it's great news. The gang makes almost $2 million overnight on a single trade. They gleefully text details of how much they and their investors are making.

They don't even ask why so anymore.

The money Cleuchan makes from the stolen financial information is literally piling up. He has a safe in which he stashes stacks of $100 bills, gradually filling it until at one point it holds $3 million in cash. But Cleuchan was wealthy before he turned his operation criminal.

Here's federal prosecutor Stephen Frank, who investigated the case. He was a lot like the kind of people that we prosecute for white-collar crime here in the United States every day, who don't really need to turn to white-collar crime in order to be successful because they already are successful. He was wealthy. He had a very nice house. He had very nice cars. He had a country house.

But he wanted more, like so many of our defendants do, and he found a way to get access to easy money, and he took it. FBI Special Agent David Hitchcock agrees. Vladislav Klyushin was a successful businessman before he began engaging in the insider trading. So if he's already wealthy, he's a rich guy, he lives in Moscow, why do this? I think the same way individuals here in the United States commit crime that's financially motivated, it's greed.

Straight up. That was my takeaway. Cleuchin, who was born in 1980, wasn't always rich. He grew up poor and he had to hustle to get ahead. He's the son of a single teen mother and he's never known his father. He started working at age 13 to help lift his family out of poverty. But his brainpower took him far, graduating from the Moscow Academy of Economics and Law and going on to get a master's degree in management.

By the time he opens the cybersecurity company M13, he's successful and well-loved by his employees. His team at M13 is a social group. There are birthday parties with hats, cake, and singing.

and rooftop barbecues with the gang from the office. Several M13 staff members say Klyushin helps them get access to top hospitals in Moscow when they or a family member are sick. By this time, Klyushin is also a family man. He married his second wife, Zhanna, at an exclusive country club outside Moscow, posing for pictures with his new bride, driving a convertible Porsche and embracing under a heavily laden trellis of roses. ♪

The couple produces an extensive highlight video of the wedding, featuring scenes of Cleutian jogging and swimming and his wife drinking champagne and lying on an outdoor canopy bed covered in flowers. It's all set to a blissful soundtrack.

In the video, a youthful Cleutian has brown hair combed to the side, deep brown eyes, and a dimpled chin. He's just hitting that stage of life where prosperous men start to get a little stocky, and he's got the slightest tinge of gray coming in at his temples. Between his two marriages, Cleutian is the father of five children. The company and the family are both fueled by Cleutian's spectacular success in business.

But the secret to that success is not in his technical skills. In fact, Klyushin doesn't have any specialized computer skills at all. What he does have are contacts.

He was a well-connected guy, and he was enormously successful. Klyushin knows highly placed people in the Russian intelligence and defense worlds. In June of 2020, Klyushin received the Russian Medal of Honor, with documentation signed by Vladimir Putin himself. He's also connected to the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, which is a successor to the notorious Cold War intelligence agency, the KGB. Klyushin even received an award from the FSB.

The inscription expresses sincere gratitude to you for the productive and effective collaboration in ensuring security of the Russian Federation in the information sphere. It's signed by the deputy director of the FSB. Now, we don't know exactly what Klyushin did to earn this spying award, but we do know Klyushin is a guy who's hanging around some seriously high-powered spies. At some point along the way, Klyushin makes his most important contact yet —

He connects with a young computer hacker named Ivan Ermikov, who becomes an employee of Cleuchan's firm M13. Very quickly, the two men strike up a business partnership and something of a bromance. Suddenly, business and life are good. Here's prosecutor Seth Costow.

One of the things that was curious about the case was the interrelationship between Klyushin and Ermikov. They were thick as thieves, very quickly, for two men who really didn't have much contact with each other before 2018.

Once their operation is up and running, they're in near constant contact. They go out drinking, and they sauna together naked. The FBI finds videos and pictures on their devices showing the two men at fancy dinners. In one, Ermikov is at a candlelit restaurant, holding his knife and fork dramatically over an impossibly large hunk of meat. In another, they pose with Klyushin's wife and Ermikov's girlfriend. The setting appears to be a high-end cocktail party.

Klyushin is in a tailored dress shirt and slacks with an expensive-looking watch on his left wrist. His wife is in a polka-dotted dress, a glass of wine in her right hand. Ermikov wears jeans and a sweater, and he has a proud grin on his face as his girlfriend hooks her elbow through his arm. The photo radiates confidence and elegance.

We see more casual images, too. Ermikov working on his golf swing at a driving range. And when the soccer World Cup comes to Russia, it's a point of pride for Vladimir Putin's regime and a huge global event. They're caught up in the excitement as players score goals. His first goal at a major tournament. Klyushin and his crew are all in on the games.

The images captured by the FBI show them eating, drinking, celebrating, and showing off their Russian colors with temporary tattoos of the Russian flag painted on their cheeks.

The oligarch and the hacker also share a fondness for helicopter skiing, and videos show them sweaty and exhausted but looking happy inside a chopper. The buddies shop for expensive things. Klyushin buys a luxury apartment for Ermikov and buys himself a yacht worth almost $4 million called the 7K from a shipyard in Cyprus. At one point, Klyushin sends a text to Ermikov telling him how much he enjoys being with him.

These are voice actors reading each man's texts. Klyushin. We spend a lot of time together. I feel good and calm. The fact that we can walk home together and have a beer or play golf or simply send everyone to hell, knowing that you're close. Ermikov teases Klyushin about his outburst of emotion. This truly sounds like a nice declaration of love. Like a declaration of love to a girl.

I asked prosecutor Stephen Frank about this. I mean, it sounds like a bromance. It was definitely a bromance between those two. Thank you all for listening to this preview of The Crimes of Putin's Traitor. If you want to find out what happens next, you can get the full episode right now. Follow and listen to The Crimes of Putin's Traitor wherever you get your podcasts.

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