In this small town, 700 kilometers from the Russian capital, Moscow, it seemed impossible to trace a billionaire who, despite his crimes, had become a mystery around the world.
Most of the names on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's most wanted list in cybercrime are Russian citizens. There are some who work for the government for a salary but there are also a large number of people who use the internet just to make money, commit online thefts and cyber attacks on websites are involved.
If they left Russia, they would be arrested, but they were probably released on bail.
Accompanied by a translator and cameraman, I had reached this remote place in search of one of such criminals. A young boy came out knocking on the door of a flat in a dilapidated building. Ignoring the middle-aged woman behind the boy and in the kitchen of the flat, I asked the question that brought me here.
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Got the answer 'Igor Trashio? no. I don't think the name is unfamiliar. '
I asked another question. His family is registered at this address. Then who are you
As soon as I told him that we were BBC reporters, the atmosphere changed.
"I can't tell you where he is and you don't even try to find him," the boy said angrily. You shouldn't have come here. '
I didn't sleep well that night. I kept thinking about the conflicting reports I received from people in the cybersecurity sector.
The search began two years ago when the FBI revealed the names of nine members of a Russian hacking group, the Evil Corps, and accused the group's leaders, Maxim Yakubets and Igor Trashio, of allegedly killing more than 40 people. After the cyber thefts and hacking of the websites in the countries, the ransom has collected one hundred million US dollars.
Their victims range from small businesses to large charities, including a large multinational company like Garman, and a school, and these are just the names we know of.
The State Department says these individuals are cyber bank robbers who attack websites for ransom money and hack into anyone's account to steal money. The reports make Maxim Jacobs, then 32, a poster boy for the Russian hacking world.
According to videos obtained by the UK's National Crime Agency, the two Russian hackers could be seen driving expensive Lamborghini cars, laughing while holding note dolls and playing with a pet lion cub.
The FBI's indictment of these Russian hackers was the result of years of hard work, during which former members of their gang were interviewed and cyber-forensics was used. Some of the facts that came to light during the investigation were very old, such as the year 2010, when Russian police also cooperated with the FBI.
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This cooperation has now become a dream after the recent conflict between Russia and the United States. The Russian government now laughs and denies allegations of hacking against its citizens by the United States. The fact is that these hackers have not only been given free rein, but many of them also work for the Russian defense establishment.
We began our search for Maxim Yakubates at a golf course two hours from Moscow, where videos of Maxim's spectacular wedding in 2017 were viewed by people around the world. Surprisingly, Maxim's face is nowhere to be seen in these videos.
In these videos made by a video production company, it can be seen that Maxim is dancing in a beautiful light show while singing a famous Russian singer.
Natalia, who was planning the wedding, showed us some of the places without going into details, including a specially built building with pillars in the mountains near a lake.
As I wandered around the golf course, my mind did some calculations. According to what I was seeing and hearing, this wedding would have cost more than two and a half million dollars. This is the amount of money that people used to estimate by watching videos. I estimate that the wedding would have cost at least five to six million US dollars.
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It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. Forty-year-old Igor is not far behind Maxim in this regard.
My colleague and BBC Russia Cyber Security Reporter Andrei Zakharov used public documents to track down three companies named after Igor. The offices of the three companies are located in the prestigious Federation Tower in Moscow. Seeing these splendid skyscrapers made me feel like I was in Manhattan, New York, or Canary Wharf, London.
When we went inside and tried to get the information, a confused member of the reception staff first tried to find the phone number of these offices. Later it was found out that the phone number of these offices was not there but the mobile phone number in the name of a firm was found on which the call was made.
After the call, we waited. Frank Sanatra's song rang out for about five minutes before someone suddenly picked up the phone. He cut the line when we told him we were journalists.
Andrei said that since Igor was not wanted in Russia, he would not have had any difficulty in renting an office in such an expensive area. This place is also great for this because there are offices of many companies working in cryptocurrency in the area which is considered as economic center. A company called Bitcoin is also among the victims, who allegedly took a ransom of US 10 million for the return of the website after a cyber attack.
With Andre's help, we tried to find an address where Maxim had ever worked. We learned that at one time he was a director of his mother's company but now he has no registered business or address.
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But during the same search we found some addresses where he was likely to live. We decided to continue the search in these places now.
Luck was with us and we found her father at one of these addresses.
When we pressed the intercom of this place, we did not know who lives here, but when Maxim's name was mentioned on the intercom, a middle-aged man replied, 'Maxim no longer lives here. It's been fifteen years since he left. I am his father.'
We couldn't believe our eyes when not only did the man come out a short time later, but he gave us an emotional 20-minute interview in which he scolded most US officials for saying that his son Why was the crime committed?
A 5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Maxim by US authorities put him and his family at risk of an attack at any moment. Remember that this amount of reward is also the highest amount ever for a cyber criminal. Maxim's father insisted that we broadcast his statement.
"The Americans have created a big problem for me, for my family and for those who know us. What was the purpose of all this? The American justice system has also been transformed into the Soviet justice system. Maxim was not questioned, he was not interrogated, no procedure was adopted to prove his guilt.
Maxim's father has denied allegations that his son is a cyber criminal. When I asked him how he thought his son had become so rich, he laughed further. "I am exaggerating the wedding expenses and as far as luxury cars are concerned, they were rented," he said. "Maxim's salary is definitely higher than the average person's because he does the work for which he is paid," he said.
He asserted that his confession had been obtained through torture, and that his confession had been obtained through torture.
On the one hand, the list of Russian hackers like Yakubets and Maxim is getting longer, on the other hand, the Western world is facing difficulties in its campaign to thwart cyber attacks.
Russian citizens and groups are among those facing sanctions and indictments worldwide.
The sanctions freeze their financial assets and prevent them from working with any Western company, while imposing travel bans on them.
Following in the footsteps of the United States last year, the European Union (EU) also launched cyber sanctions, with only Russian citizens facing the most sanctions.
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Most of those on the sanctions list are said to be linked to the Russian state. Sometimes they are used for espionage hacking, sometimes for coercion or just for show of force. There is no denying that every country now uses hacking against its opponents, but the United States and Britain have accused Russia of cyber-attacks that sometimes cross a line.
Some of these Russian hackers are also accused of being responsible for hacking and blacking out power grids in Ukraine. Some have been accused of trying to break into chemical weapons testing laboratories. At the official level, Russia denies all allegations and is part of Western propaganda against Russia.
There is ambiguity as to where the limits come from in the war on state hacking, so we have limited our search to those who have been charged.
Talking to Maxim's father, I realized that the indictment against his son must have had at least such an effect that he was angry, but it has not had much effect on the Evil Corps so far.
Cybersecurity researchers say members of the group are still involved in cyber-attacks targeting mostly Western countries.
According to former hackers and security researchers, the golden rule of the Russian hacking world is that as long as your victim does not belong to Russia or Russian-speaking areas, you can target whomever you want.
Leila Yaparova works with the Medoza Media Group as an investigative journalist. He says Russia's secret services are taking advantage of this golden rule to make it easier for them to identify the hackers they use for their work.
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"It's much better for the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, to get these hackers out of jail than to get them to do their job," he said. A former FSB official told me that he personally encouraged some members of the group to work for the intelligence service.
U.S. officials say Maxim and other wanted hackers work directly for Russian intelligence. It is no coincidence that Maxim's father-in-law, who can be seen in his wedding video, was a senior former FSB officer.
We asked the Russian government how these hackers could get around so easily. There was no response from them.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin was recently asked the same question during the Geneva summit, he said there was no truth in the allegation that Russia was a stronghold of high-profile cyber-attacks. On the contrary, they claim that most cyber attacks originate in the United States. He promised that he was ready to work with the United States on this issue.
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