Hi, I'm Ran Levy. Welcome back to Sabey's malicious life.

This episode is Operation Flyhook, part two. 2.

As a reminder, here's the summary thus far.

In the spring of 1999, Alexei Ivanov, a talented hacker from a little city in Russia, was applying to work for American companies.

But he was also becoming a pretty good hacker on the site, working hustles on eBay and

PayPal and cracking into small companies here and there.

By the fall of 1999, Alexa Ivanov and his business partner Vassili Goshkov were breaching American companies. They gained root access to servers, stole

sensitive data, then offered to help quote unquote fix those systems for a fee.

All the while Alexei was still sending around his resume

hoping that someone would take a chance on a talented foreigner.

Finally, in the summer of 2000, he got his wish.

A security startup called Invita was willing to take a chance on two talented Russians

with a checkered history. The company invited them to America

for a final step in what would end in a formal job offer.

Kind of getting up to the part of the story where the FBI approached us with this mystery they had.

That's Ray Pompon, director of F5 Laps. You heard him in our part one episode.

He's about to become not just a commentator, but a participant in our story.

We'll have to back up a moment first.

It was fall of the

it was fall of 2000 when Ray entered the frame.

It was fall of 2000 when Ray entered the frame.

While Invida was making travel arrangements for their new Russian hires,

...