U.S. arrests executives of Oxygen Forensics after company supplied smartphone-access tools to both ICE and the FSB

U.S. authorities have accused executives of Oxygen Forensics, a company that sold software to the Pentagon and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of concealing that the company was controlled by Russian citizens and that its software was developed in Russia.

CEO Lee Reiber and Chief Technology Officer Oleg Davydov were arrested in connection with the case. The Insider was able to confirm that Oxygen Forensics supplied software capable of accessing the contents of locked phones not only to U.S. law enforcement agencies but also to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). The same software was used to extract data from the iPhone of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.

According to U.S. prosecutors, 55-year-old Reiber, an American citizen and CEO of Oxygen Forensics, was arrested in Idaho on Sept. 20 and was later ordered released on bail. Davydov, a 52-year-old Russian citizen and co-founder and chief technology officer of the company, was arrested the same day at London’s Heathrow Airport as he was preparing to fly to Istanbul. The U.S. intends to seek his extradition.

According to court documents, Reiber told the U.S. government that Virginia-based Oxygen Forensics was not owned or controlled by foreign nationals, even though five Russian citizens, including Davydov, allegedly owned stakes in or helped manage the company through a Cyprus-registered holding company. Prosecutors also allege that Reiber falsely claimed Oxygen Forensics software was developed in the United States rather than Russia. A court in California, where the case will be heard, ordered the seizure of company accounts and more than 50 domains belonging to the business.

Court documents say that no later than March 2022, Reiber, Davydov, and others entered into a conspiracy to obtain contracts from federal agencies. The software they supplied is used to recover, preserve, and analyze electronic data from digital devices while maintaining original files in an unchanged state.

Oxygen Forensics was founded in Virginia in 2013 with the involvement of Moscow-born Davydov. Reiber joined the company two years later. In 2022, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Oxygen Forensics executives decided to conceal information about the company’s Russian owners — references to them were removed from official corporate records, prosecutors said. Reiber was appointed CEO, president, and chairman of the board in March 2022.

How the FSB gains access to opposition figures’ phones

On June 2, 2023, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was due to return to Prague from Kazan, where she had been visiting her sick mother. However, she was detained at the airport. Authorities seized her iPhone XR, and the FSB was subsequently able to access its contents, including WhatsApp messages. Her passports were also confiscated, and she was barred from leaving Russia. A year later, she was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison on charges of spreading “false information” about the Russian military under a law that is widely used against critics of the war.