Two men face US charges over allegations that a Virginia phone forensics vendor concealed its Russian ownership while selling its tools to American agencies.
Lee Reiber, the company’s chief executive, was arrested at his home in Boise, Idaho. Oleg Davydov was picked up in London; prosecutors describe him as one of five Russian nationals who really ran the business, and the United States plans to seek his extradition. The single count against each man is conspiring to commit wire fraud.
A paperwork fix for sanctions
Court papers describe a rebranding timed to sanctions. In 2022, as Washington widened its Russia measures, Oxygen made Reiber chief executive and scrubbed the actual owners from its public paperwork. A note from an unnamed co-conspirator refers to five shareholders who would make the fateful decisions, Davydov among them, and prosecutors say those Russians overruled the chief executive repeatedly.
The arrangement held for years. Government customers included the Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the DHS inspector general and the Defense Department, and contracts and purchases through the Secret Service and its National Computer Forensics Institute topped $2M. As late as February, Reiber was still telling that institute the company was American-owned.
Why procurement mattered
Ownership, prosecutors suggest, was the deciding factor, quoting procurement officials who said they would never have handed over or renewed those contracts had they known the truth. The FSB counts among Oxygen Russia’s clientele. The Justice Department added that it does not allege the software carried any malicious code.
