Data on Russian prisoners disappears from US database

Records of several Russian inmates held in the US jails are no longer accessible in the Federal Bureau of Prisons as of July 31. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency was the first one to break the news on the issue.

According to RIA, data on at least four persons convicted over the past years is absent from the publicly available list. The people in question are Aleksandr Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshenok and Vladislav Klyushin, the news agency said. Data on some other Russians held in the US prisons is still available, it added.

Vinnik is a computer expert arrested in Greece in 2017 at the US request. Both Moscow and Washington as well as Paris requested his extradition on various charges ranging from fraud to hacking. In 2020, he was extradited to France but the man ended up in the US two years later, where he eventually pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit money laundering in May 2024.

Marchenko was arrested in the US in September 2023 on charges of purchasing dual-use microelectronics in violation of the sanctions regime against Russia. In February 2024, he pleaded guilty to illicitly procuring large quantities of US-manufactured dual-use “military-grade” microelectronics, according to the US Attorney Damian Williams. In July, he was sentenced to three years behind bars on those charges. His lawyer said at that time that the US government had “exaggerated the seriousness of what Mr. Marchenko did” and he ended up getting a heavier penalty than he would otherwise have gotten.

Konoshenok was arrested at Estonia’s border with the US-made high-tech electronics and ammunition in December 2022. Washington then demanded his extradition, which was granted in July 2023. He was also charged with violating the US sanctions. The man himself maintained he was innocent and described his case as politically motivated. He also told the Russian diplomats about the worsening detention conditions and the lack of medical aid back in November 2023.

Klyushin, a Russian businessman and an owner of a Moscow-based information technology company, M-13, was arrested in Switzerland during a ski trip in March 2021 and subsequently extradited to the US on charges of hacking US computer networks and trading insight information. He was found guilty by a federal jury in Boston of charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud in February 2024.

The businessman’s lawyers argued that there was not a single piece of evidence proving the guilt of their client. The real reason behind his prosecution was Washington’s desire to question him on his connections to the Russian government, they added, according to Reuters. One of the lawyers, Oliver Ciric, said that both the US and the UK intelligence services had earlier tried to recruit Klyushin back in 2019.

RT could not find any information on the four men in the publicly available Federal Bureau of Prisons database. The US authorities, including the Department of State, have not commented on the issue in response to RIA Novosti’s request.

The Russian news agency reported that the development came amid “speculations” in the Western media about the possible prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington. The Russian side has so far not officially commented on a possible swap.

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