US sends cybercriminals back to Russia in prisoner swap that freed WSJ journo, others

At least two Russian cybercriminals are among those being returned to their motherland as part of a multinational prisoner exchange deal announced Thursday.

In short, America just sent a bunch of criminals back to Russia, and in return, Russia let some of its detainees go, including at least one US journalist.

Of those two freshly released Russian cybercriminals, one is Roman Seleznev aka Track2, who was sentenced to 27 years behind bars in the United States in April 2017 for compromising point-of-sale systems so that victims' credit card details could be siphoned and sold to fraudsters via the infamous Carder[.]SU marketplace.

Months later, the now-40-year-old son of a Russian MP was sent down for 14 years for his involvement in a $59 million identity-theft and bank-fraud ring, with those sentences running concurrently.

Videos circulating online today showed Seleznev and other freed Russian prisoners shaking hands with President Vladimir Putin upon disembarking the plane that carried them back to their country.

The other Russian techno-crook going home is Vladislav Klyushin, the Russian owner of security penetration testing firm M-13. In September 2023, a judge in the US gave Klyushin a nine-year stretch for stealing corporations' confidential financial information in a $93 million insider-trading scheme.

He was arrested in 2021 upon arriving in Switzerland on a private jet. Klyushin was later extradited to America, and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, gaining unauthorized access to computers, and conspiracy. He was found guilty in February 2023.

The White House announced the prisoner exchange today but did not immediately respond to The Register's requests to confirm the identity of all Russian nationals being released.

The Biden Administration did identify one Russian who will be sent home – convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov who was held in Germany – but has not detailed the other prisoners being exchanged for three Americans: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan, and Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-American reporter with Radio Free Europe – plus Russian-British green-card holder and Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza.

All four were being "unjustly" detained in Russia, the White House said, and are now free following the swap.

US President Joe Biden called the deal "a feat of democracy," and said America, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey negotiated the release of a total of 16 people from Russia – including seven Russians who had been political prisoners, and five Germans. Biden's statement only named the above three Americans and one permanent resident.

"Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years," President Biden said. "All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over." ®