None of this happens without @BikiniRobotArmy - whose father was a senior DB exec that took his own life in 2014 - and who has been jerked around by various journalists for years. We're grateful that one of his docs was a big piece of this story.
A backstory to the article:
We've had the DB "breach report" for over a year. We did articles on it in January and then set it aside for a bit. With fresh eyes, we examined every entry and did meticulous background research when we acquired the internal Yugra Bank docs. Boom.
With documents in hand, we began to dig into the back story of Yugra Bank, doing open-source research on its history. Then, we talked to people who knew its elusive oligarch owner, Alexey Khotin.
It became clear to us that, at its core, this is a spy story.
Russia's top spy, Nikolai Patrushev, supported this oligarch for years. The oligarch is neck-deep in ties to FSB leadership.
Something that didn't make it into the story: Khotin's offices circle 2012-ish had underground tunnels, iron doors, and 24/7 armed guards.
Forbes had Khotin as Russia 95th richest man in 2016 but it couldn't find ONE picture of the man. He owned over 2,000,000 square feet of Moscow real estate. Not one picture.
Every aspect of him/his bank drips with Russian spycraft.
At best, we have a Russian-intelligence-backed shadow businessman who embezzled a third of a billion dollars from his bank thru Deutsche Bank in NY when his bank was reporting $22M in cash.
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