SEC v. Vladislav Kliushin, Nikolai Rumiantcev, Mikhail Irzak, Igor Sladkov, and Ivan Yermakov (hack to trade, 2021)

Judgment entered

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In December 2021 the SEC charged five Russian nationals over an alleged hack-to-trade scheme that profited by at least $82 million. On May 22, 2025 the District of Massachusetts granted the SEC's unopposed summary judgment motion against Vladislav Kliushin, who had been convicted in a parallel criminal case and sentenced to nine years before his sentence was commuted.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

$82m

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this action on December 22, 2021 as litigation release LR-25295, filing civil action 21-CV-12088 in the District of Massachusetts on December 20, 2021. The defendants are Vladislav Kliushin, Nikolai Rumiantcev, Mikhail Irzak, Igor Sladkov and Ivan Yermakov (5 individuals, 0 entities). Earlier versions of this record merged the first four names into one and showed the matter as a judgment; it was a new complaint.

The complaint alleges that Yermakov used deceptive hacking techniques to get into the systems of two filing agents that prepare companies' SEC reports, and passed not-yet-public earnings announcements to the other four. From 2018 through 2020 the traders allegedly used 20 brokerage accounts in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Portugal to trade ahead of over 500 earnings announcements, making at least $82 million, and funnelled part of the profit through a Russian technology company Kliushin founded.

The SEC charges violations of Securities Act Section 17(a), Exchange Act Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, with Section 20(b) and aiding-and-abetting claims against the four traders. The U.S. Attorney's Office announced parallel criminal charges against all five.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above.

Outcome: SEC release LR-26318 (May 30, 2025) says the court found Kliushin violated Section 17(a), Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, directly and through a co-defendant, and entered a permanent injunction, with disgorgement and prejudgment interest deemed satisfied by his criminal forfeiture and restitution orders; the release gives no dollar figure, so none is recorded. It says a jury convicted him in the parallel criminal case, that his nine-year term (108 months) was commuted to time served in July 2024, and that the commutation did not affect the conviction. This outcome covers only Kliushin; the status of the other four defendants was not checked.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Hack to trade — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2021-12-22 Litigation release published
2. 2025-05-22 Final judgment on summary judgment against Kliushin (LR-26318)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release
• SEC litigation release LR-26318 (final judgment against Kliushin)

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 20, 2026. submit a correction.