Tech CEO arrested after failing to disclose software sold to US government was owned and developed by Russians
Lee Reiber was arrested in the US on Sunday alongside Russian national Oleg Davydov, 52, who was arrested at Heathrow Airport.
A CEO has been arrested in the US for concealing that his company was owned and controlled by Russians after he sold software to multiple US government agencies.
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Lee Reiber, 55, of Idaho, is the CEO of Oxygen Forensics, a digital forensics company that has contracts with the Department of War, the US Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Oxygen Forensics produces software that is used to recover, preserve, and analyse electronic data from digital devices.
He was arrested in the US on Sunday alongside Russian national Oleg Davydov, 52, who was arrested at Heathrow Airport.
Both have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison.
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Reiber had told the government that Oxygen Forensics had no foreign ownership or control, when in fact, the software he had sold to them was developed in Russia and the company itself was owned by five Russian nationals.
Davydov, and the four other Russians, owned and controlled the company through a holding company based in Cyprus.
The five Russians also owned a company called Oxygen Software, now known as MKO Systems, where they sold the software under different names to customers that reportedly included the Russian Federal Security Service (known as the FSB), the Russian Investigative Committee, and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The US District Attorney's Office asserts: "After the United States imposed expanded sanctions on Russia in early 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Davydov, Reiber, and the Russian co-conspirators agreed to conceal Oxygen Forensics’ true ownership and the development of its software in Russia.
"Reiber was installed as the company’s CEO, president, and chairman of the board in March 2022. The Russian owners were then removed from the company’s public corporate filings.
"The company’s Russian owners continued to make significant decisions and set Reiber’s compensation, overruled him on payments, and held signatory authority over the company’s bank accounts."
In 2022 and 2023, Reiber continued to tell the US government that Oxygen Forensics had no immediate or higher-level owner.
Again, in 2024, the company certified to the Department of War that no foreign person had the power to control the appointment of Oxygen Forensics' directors or managers or to direct its other decisions or activities.
By this point, one of the company's owners had been appointed to the board under a Turkish identity.
On September 20, the US government seized corporate bank accounts, approximately 57 domains, and other cyberinfrastructure.