Russian Fraudster Hacked Accounts to Manipulate Stocks, SEC Says

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Russian national Dmitrii Yevgenyevich Kushnarev over an alleged “account takeover attack” scheme that compromised hundreds of US and Canadian retail brokerage accounts to manipulate stock prices.

The complaint, entered in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Wednesday, alleges that from March 2014 to at least May 2021, Kushnarev hacked into retail brokerage accounts and used them to buy thinly traded stocks, driving up prices. He used hacked accounts without owners’ knowledge to trade securities of more than 380 different NYSE, Nasdaq, and OTC Markets issuers, the filing said.

Kushnarev ...