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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Russian national Dmitrii Yevgenyevich Kushnarev for an account hacking scheme that generated $1.5-million in gains. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) The SEC claims that Mr. Kushnarev obtained access to hundreds of retail brokerage accounts in the United States and Canada, and then used those accounts to manipulate thinly traded stocks. Mr. Kushnarev profited from the manipulations using offshore accounts that he held using aliases, according to the SEC.

The allegations are contained in a civil complaint that the SEC released on Wednesday, Sept. 24. The sole defendant is Mr. Kushnarev, 58, who resides in Russia. The SEC says that he served a prison sentence from 2002 to 2004 in Russia for fraud.

The scheme, as set out by the SEC, involved Mr. Kushnarev or "unknown individuals conspiring with him" hacking into brokerage accounts from 2014 through 2021. Mr. Kushnarev used those accounts to buy shares of companies trading on North American exchanges, with the trades causing the target stocks to temporarily rise in price, according to the SEC. He also bought and sold shares to create the appearance of liquidity, the SEC claims.

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