Klyushin was undeniably having a dreadful day. The judge presiding over his case had dismissed the pleas from his attorneys and the heartfelt requests for mercy from his friends. She issued a harsh sentence: an additional nine years in federal prison in the U.S., along with a forfeiture of a staggering $34 million.
However, if Klyushin was disheartened by the verdict, he didn’t display it. The 42-year-old technology executive from Moscow appeared surprisingly buoyant—quick to smile, with cheeks ready for pinch and an unwavering politeness, traits that had been evident during his arrest at a Swiss ski resort in March 2021, his subsequent months of detention in Switzerland, his extradition to the U.S. the following December, his indictment and trial on charges of hacking and wire fraud, and his prompt conviction. Klyushin “retained a confidence throughout that eventually the Russians would secure his return,” one of his defense lawyers told me. He seemed convinced that his allies in the Kremlin would intervene to prevent him from serving his entire sentence.
At times, that belief appeared overly optimistic. The U.S. federal prison system held 35 Russian nationals. Surely, not all of them would be part of any exchange. His family and friends were in distress. Yet, within a year, Klyushin’s predictions came true. On August 1, 2024, he was released from his restraints and boarded a plane headed for Moscow—one of 24 individuals involved in the most extensive and intricate prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia to date.
You may have heard about this exchange. It was notable for facilitating the return of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan to the United States—while sending back to Russia a Kremlin-associated assassin and a husband-and-wife pair of spies who had been so covert that their children only learned they were Russian when they boarded the aircraft. Klyushin received minimal attention in the coverage of this exchange, treated merely as a footnote. This was an oversight, albeit an understandable one, not just because he was at the heart of one of history’s most significant insider trading cases.
The intensifying tensions between the U.S. and Russia have expressed themselves in various ways over the past decade. One of these is in global financial markets, as the U.S. and its allies have increasingly isolated Russian industries from the international economic landscape. Yet, there will always be resourceful individuals who can identify loopholes, and Klyushin appears to have been one of those. It doesn’t take much imagination to interpret his scheme—which ultimately grossed $93 million—as a method to funnel capital into Russia, despite the international blockade. This conflict has also manifested on the streets of Moscow, where a clandestine Kremlin security unit has apprehended American citizens under false charges and subsequently leveraged them in exchanges for assassins, spies, and Kremlin associates. This practice resembles kidnapping and hostage-taking and has seemingly been authorized by President Vladimir Putin. Frequently, Americans are seized precisely for their worth as bargaining chips to later facilitate the return of figures like the assassin or Klyushin. While he wasn’t at the pinnacle of Russia’s list for exchanges, Klyushin held a more significant position of importance for the Kremlin than either party was willing to acknowledge.
Illustration: Vartika Sharma
In the world of commerce, Klyushin had a storybook rise, with a heartfelt wedding video to authenticate it. In a montage later acquired by U.S. prosecutors, Klyushin plunges into a country club swimming pool; his fiancée, Zhannetta, sips pink champagne on a bed adorned with chiffon and roses; he picks her up in a white Porsche convertible; she appears stunning in her backless gown; he’s charming, albeit a tad awkward, in his tuxedo and subtle mullet; they share laughter and glances, their silhouettes illuminated by celebratory fireworks. “I cannot name a more honorable person than my husband,” Zhannetta later expressed to the judge in his sentencing.
Together, they had three children, adding to the two Klyushin had from a prior marriage. He was recognized as a devoted father, distinctly different from his own father, whom he never met, or his stepfather, who lost his life during a vehicle robbery when Klyushin was only 14. Rising from a background of destitution, he established various businesses, starting in construction and marketing, later founding an IT company named M13, which developed media and internet monitoring software for Russian government entities. His early clients in 2016 included the Ministry of Defense and the presidential administration office, where Putin’s propaganda leader became a key supporter of M13. The company’s software was employed to monitor hundreds of Telegram channels for a Kremlin anxious about “the infiltration of unverified or intentionally false information,” according to local news reports.
Klyushin experienced a rapid ascent, securing over $30 million in government contracts over a decade. This success baffled some of his professional colleagues. (“The company and its owner are unknown to the majority in the IT community,” a reputable Russian business magazine pointed out in 2021.) Nevertheless, his success brought him influence and admirers. He supported cultural initiatives and even repaired the roof of the monastery situated on Lubyanka Street in Moscow, just blocks from the headquarters of Russia’s spy agency, the FSB. One friend later described Klyushin as an “eco-activist” (for planting “a few spruces in the backyard”) and a “animal lover” (his favorite pet being a dog). Another family friend and tennis instructor praised him as “open-minded, well-read, and educated.” An employee at M13 stated that conversing with Klyushin “is akin to receiving wisdom from a sage.”
