In an unprecedented prisoner swap involving Belarus, Germany, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, and the United States, two Russian individuals serving sentences related to cybercrime have been released and returned to their home nation.
This includes Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Valerevich Seleznev, two of the eight individuals who were transferred back to Russia in exchange for the release of 16 individuals who were detained; these individuals included four Americans, five Germans, and seven citizens of Russia who were detained as political prisoners.
A “feat of diplomacy,” according to US President Joe Biden, who also mentioned that “some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years.” Poland and Turkey were two more countries involved in the transfer.
Former US Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal writer Evan Gershkovich, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza—a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin—are among those who have been freed from Russia.
In 2017, Seleznev—also going by the identities Track2, Bulba, and nCux—was found guilty of payment card fraud, which cost small businesses and financial institutions in the United States close to $170 million in damages. He was sentenced to 27 years in jail. After that, he was given an additional 14 years in prison for his involvement in a $50 million cybercrime network and for using a hacking plan to defraud banks of $9 million.
Klyushin, the proprietor of security penetration testing company M-13, is the other Russian national returning home. He was found guilty in September of stealing trade secrets worth $93 million from American corporations through an insider trading scheme.
“There has never, as far as we know, been an exchange involving so many countries, so many close U.S. partners and allies working together,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was cited as saying. “Not since the Cold War has there been a similar number of individuals exchanged in this way.”
This discovery coincides with the announcement by the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom (UK) of the closure of a fraudulent platform known as Russian Coms (“russiancoms[.]cm”), whose users were able to make over 1.3 million anonymous calls between 2021 and 2024 by impersonating banks and law enforcement organisations.
After being taken into custody and placed on conditional bail, three people who are purportedly connected to the conception and development of the platform were freed. The caller ID spoofing solution, which was promoted on Telegram, Instagram, and Snapchat, ranged in price from £350 to £1,000 and was offered as a web app and a customised phone.
“The platform allowed criminals to hide their identity by appearing to call from pre-selected numbers, most commonly of financial institutions, telecommunications companies, and law enforcement agencies,” according to the NCA. “This enabled them to gain the trust of victims before stealing their money and personal details.”