[suspenseful music]

They were using proceeds to recruit people to buy merchandise in the United States, so, like, high-end, let's say, electronics like MacBooks or iPhones, uh, bags like Louis Vuitton bags.

And then, then these would go to reshippers that would then go over to Russia.

Selling these goods back in Russia for a premium, you're then taking those profits, putting it back into a film company that's distributing, you know, films.

Keith says part of the office was actually like a factory floor for hackers.

We were able to uncover that these coders and programmers that were getting recruited were reporting to work there.

If I remember correctly, uh, they may have had two floors, like 25th Floor Films, which was the legitimate film distribution company, and I think maybe, like, the 24th floor had, like, the coders in there.

[suspenseful music]

What, what does that actually mean? And then kinda like what, what did you see that surprised you there, and how did that spark kinda what you all are doing today in your business? And, and maybe so that we can have an idea, what should we do with this?

Yeah.

So I'll, I'll try to make it, uh, as, uh, brief, I guess, as I can.

Uh, so, so y- you know, when I was working at the FBI, it...

Traditionally how the FBI always worked was you would have a victim or a crime, and you would try to figure out who was doing it.

You know, you would trace an IP address or something like that, an email address.

Um, and then, you know, around the turn of like the, the, the two- early 2000s, uh, these different communities came, uh, online, these different forums that hackers were on, and they were actually just advertising their wares.

Do you have thoughts on this? Do you coach and mentor how people think about this?

What, what was your experience level and role in the agency then?

So I was just a street agent on one of the counterintelligence squads at the Washington field office investigating, uh, the, the SVR, which is the current Russian intelligence service.

So we investigated, uh, the intelligence officers that were stationed under diplomatic cover at the embassy that would handle any penetrations into the US government.

Uh, so, so we were tracking the intelligence officers.

We had seen that they were, uh, doing operational activity and other things that were indicative of agent handling, but we just didn't know who that was.

Uh, one of the agents on my squad worked with, uh, Mike Rochford, who, uh, if you haven't read his story, uh, or saw him at the, uh, spy museum, I recommend all listeners to go check out Mike Rochford.

Um, but he, uh, at the end of the day, uh, one of my squad mates and Mike Rochford put together an operation where we recruited, uh, a KG, a former KGB officer that actually was the Moscow handler of this penetration of the US government that we were searching for.

Can you unpack that for us?