"The Crimes of Putin's Trader" recounts the rise and fall of Vladislav Klyushin and his business empire. He was just released from a U.S. prison in a prisoner swap.

The money Vladislav Klyushin made from stolen financial information literally piled up, filling a safe with stacks of hundred-dollar bills. At one point, he was hoarding over $3 million in illegal gains.

In less than three years, Klyushin’s cybersecurity scam amassed more than $93 million. His company, M-13, acted as a front for Russian hackers to steal information under the guise of protecting it, getting their hands on American corporate earnings reports before the rest of the world could see them. Then, they traded based on that insight, buying and selling stock from well-known American companies like Skechers, Snapchat and Roku.

M-13 once targeted Tesla, stealing its drafted earnings release and buying stock based on a historically successful quarter. Once the final earnings report went public, shares of Tesla soared in price, and Klyushin’s team walked away with yet another stack of cash.

  • KevonLooney@lemm.eeEnglish
    82·
    3 months ago

    Making $93 million with inside information on volatile tech companies is easy. This guy sounds pretty bad at trading.

    If you know that Tesla is going to have a “historically successful quarter”, it’s child’s play to buy a call option that will triple (or more) your money. This dude could even have hidden his inside info by buying and selling a series of options on index funds that held Tesla (instead of the real thing). The index would jump by a small amount that could be magnified if you buy the right contracts.

    If they tripled their money each time, they could make 81x their starting money on just these 4 companies. They should have at least over $100 million, if not $1 billion.