The former Soviet agent at Trump Jr.'s meeting was recently accused of a hacking operation

(Image credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

published 14 July 2017

New reports by NBC News place former Soviet counterintelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin at Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 meeting with Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Now a lobbyist, Akhmetshin denies any current association with the Russian government.

But in 2015, he was accused of hacking a Russian mining company, International Mineral Resources (IMR), The Daily Beast reports:

...[D]ocuments accuse Akhmetshin of hacking into two computer systems and [stealing] sensitive and confidential materials as part of an alleged black ops smear campaign against IMR. The allegations were later withdrawn.The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. was told in July 2015 that Akhmetshin had arranged the hacking of a mining company's private records — stealing internal documents and then disseminating them. The corporate espionage case was brought by IMR, who alleged that Akhmetshin was hired by Russian oligarch Andrey Melinchenko, an industrialist worth around $12 billion. [The Daily Beast]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.