How Russian hackers stole millions from U.S. investors

WASHINGTON — The White House announced a massive, multinational prisoner swap Thursday between the United States, Russia and other nations. As part of the historic deal, the Russian government released high-profile Americans held in captivity there, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who had been in a Russian prison for more than a year. 

Also included in the trade were a number of Russians who had been arrested for various crimes and held in prisons in the U.S. and other countries.

Among that group was a wealthy young Russian entrepreneur named Vladislav Klyushin – who was incarcerated in a federal prison for his role in one of the most damaging insider trading schemes in Wall Street history. 

For much of the past year, CNBC has been working on a documentary about the spectacular rise and fall of Klyushin and his business empire. 

That story begins in early 2021, when a private jet carrying an up-and-coming young Russian oligarch and his wife touched down at tiny Sion airport high in the Swiss Alps. 

Sion is the gateway to the famed ski resort of Zermatt, where the world’s elite go to ski and party. But the airport is still an hour’s drive from the slopes, so the truly wealthy walk across the tarmac and board helicopters to take them directly to the resort. 

The young oligarch was at the absolute height of his powers. He had built a fabulously successful company in Moscow and cultivated connections at the highest levels of the Russian government. 

His efforts won him the ultimate prize: He worked for the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What the oligarch did not know was that U.S. law enforcement had been monitoring his flight ever since it left Moscow. 

Or that they were planning to capture him and charge him with crimes that cut to the heart of the American financial system. 

The man on the private jet in Switzerland was Vladislav Klyushin, and he owned a cybersecurity company in Moscow called M-13.

But M-13 was a front for Klyushin’s real business – hacking into American companies and stealing confidential information, then using it to make trades on Wall Street before that information became public.

It was a multilevel crime: illegal insider trading made possible by illegal hacking. And it had made Klyushin very rich. The victims of his…