Moscow drag racers, an opulent Russian wedding and a malware code named after the Greek god of thunder. How does it all connect?

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A cyber-sleuth and “dark hero of the internet” Lawrence Baldwin sees signs of an emerging underworld. As money vanishes from accounts across the US, Lawrence follows the trail, infiltrating the gang – holding out for clues. But who are these audacious hackers?

Evil Corp is accused of being “the most pervasive cybercrime group to ever have operated” by law enforcement agencies and said to have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars. No one is off limits when it comes to their targets – not even a group of nuns in Chicago. The man alleged to be at the centre of it all is Maksim Yakubets – one of the FBI’s most wanted – who famously drove a neon Lamborghini with a Russian license plate that translated as "thief”.  

So how does a man hunted by the world’s top law enforcement for nearly two decades not only stay free, but grow his empire? The US and UK governments claim the group has forged links with the Russian security services and are behind Kremlin-backed attacks on the West. The US, UK and Australia have imposed sanctions against 16 people who they accuse of being members of Evil Corp – many of them from Maksim Yakubets’s own family, including his father.

Hosted by Joe Tidy, the BBC’s cyber correspondent – one of the few Western journalists to have met an alleged member of Evil Corp – and the BBC’s Eastern and Southern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford, who spent more than two decades reporting from Moscow.

00:00 Moscow's drag racers
01:53 An opulent Russian wedding
04:38 Wanted by the FBI
06:13 Searching for Maksim Yakubets
10:00 An emerging cybercrime underworld
12:37 Zeus: Malware named after a Greek god
19:42 Helping cybercrime victims
25:16 Eavesdropping on the hackers' chat
30:29 Hacking Bullitt County, Kentucky
35:05 Who's pulling the strings?

More episodes coming to our Cyber Hack: Evil Corp playlist 👉🏽 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz_B0PFGIn4fMzJjn5097uFQ6UCONMQFY

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