Russian convicted in Boston of stealing millions in insider-trader hacking is going home in prisoner swap

CNBC reports that Vladislav Klyushin, sentenced to nine years in federal prison last fall for overseeing an insider-trading scheme that netted him and his employees $93 million, is headed back to Russia, where he already has one medal and commendation from the country's dictator.

Klyushin and his underlings at Moscow computer-consulting firm M-13 hacked into two servers on which publicly traded American companies would file financial statements before submitting them to the SEC - and then to the public. They then made online stock trades based on the information before the news became public.

None of the companies whose information they gleaned in advance were based in Boston, but the government said it decided to try Klyushin at the Moakley Courthouse - after he was arrested in Switzerland and turned over to the FBI in a scene out of a bad spy movie - because some of his company's hacking break-ins were done via a server farm owned by the Markley Group in the Macy's building at 1 Summer St. in Downtown Crossing.

Tipped off by the FBI, Swiss officials arrested Klyushin as he and his family arrived on a private jet in Switzerland for a ski vacation there in 2021. After they deplaned, they were nabbed as they walked to the private helicopter that would ferry them to a resort.

Despite appeals from the Russian government, a Swiss court ultimately handed him over to the FBI for extradition to Boston for trial. Between 2021 and his trial last year, he was housed at a Plymouth County jail.

His attorney made several attempts to have a judge transfer him to an apartment in the Seaport, because it was near the Moakley Courthouse and because he would have lots of time to read Russian translation of the voluminous filings in the case, but judges kept agreeing with federal prosecutors that a rich Muscovite with extensive travel experience would be quick to flee the country - possibly starting with a boat pulled up to a Seaport dock.

A federal jury in Boston convicted Klyushin in February; he was sentenced in September. Along the way, he lost ownership of his yacht and a judge ruled the US government could seize his London yacht as partial reimbursement for the value of the stolen information.

Klyushin had appealed his conviction to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, also in Boston. Just last week, federal prosecutors filed a detailed legal memorandum on why he should be kept imprisoned.