Evil Corp: 1. Zeus

Cyber Hack

BBC

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Moscow drag racers, an opulent Russian wedding and a malware code named after the Greek god of thunder - how do they all connect? 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?

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 Sarah Rainsford, who spent more than two decades reporting from Moscow.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:05.7	Welcome to Cyberhack.
0:07.7	Episodes are released weekly, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:11.3	But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds.
0:25.4	You'd hear them before you ever saw them.
0:30.2	Engines howling somewhere beyond the edge of Moscow.
0:39.3	The first time I discovered the drag races, earlier my career covering Russia more than 20 years ago, it felt like I'd stepped onto the set of the fast and the furious.
0:43.3	This was Moscow's underground street racing scene,
0:46.3	a wild mix of people buzzing around in beat-up but beloved larders
0:50.3	and other souped up old cars.
0:53.3	By day they blended in.
0:55.2	By night, they'd gather in secret locations,
0:58.1	tear down hundreds of metres of tarmac,
1:00.7	before melting back into the city before sunrise.
1:04.0	But there emerged another, more brazen kind of street racer in Moscow,
1:08.9	the kind that doesn't wait until night.
1:12.2	Ones who speed through the city, under the sun, right under the nose of the police.
1:17.8	They're Moscow's super rich, and they know no one will stop them.
1:22.0	Not because they're fast, but because some say they're protected.
1:26.5	One of them was thin with quift blonde hair, Maxime Yakubyetz.
1:32.6	But Maxine wasn't driving lardas.
1:35.5	His ride of choice was a Lamborghini,
	...

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