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Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor investigating foreign agents tampering in the 2016 US presidential election, has indicted 13 Russian nationals for conspiracy against the United States.

The 36-page grand jury indictment [PDF] named staff at the Internet Research Agency troll factory as conspirators in a plan to tip the White House race in favor of Donald Trump.

The group was also accused of stealing Americans’ identities, or fabricating new ones, to open PayPal accounts to purchase ads, create online profiles, and coordinate campaign events. The trolls would use email addresses such as [email protected] for their accounts.

The baker’s dozen charged are: Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov, Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik, Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova, Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva, Sergey Pavlovich Polozov, Maria Anatolyevna Bovda, Robert Sergeyevich Bovda, Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly, Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev, Gleb Igorevitch Vasilchenko, Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, and Vladimir Venkov.

The indictment noted that the group interacted with “unwitting individuals” within the Trump campaign, and no Americans are named in this indictment. In a separate announcement, Mueller released a plea deal [PDF] with a Florida man, Richard Pinedo, on identity fraud charges related to payment processing, though that deal makes no mention of the Russian indictments.

Internet Research Agency, based in St Petersburg, Russia, is said to have fabricated a number of shell companies and fake identities to help serve as the front for its efforts to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign and sway election results.

The organization is believed to have employed hundreds of operatives and operated with a monthly budget in excess of $1m.

“In order to to carry out their activities to interfere in US political and electoral processes without detection of their Russian affiliation, Defendants conspired to obstruct the lawfull functions of the United States government through fraud and deceit, including by making expenditures in connection with the 2016 US presidential election without proper regulatory disclosure; failing to register as foreign agents carrying out political activities within the United States; and obtaining visas through false and fraudulent statements,” the indictment read.

According to the indictment, the 13 individuals mastered social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to reach Americans with messages like “Donald wants to defeat terrorism… Hillary wants to sponsor it,” “Trump is our only hope for a better future!” and “Hillary is Satan, and her crimes and lies had proved just how evil she is.”

Among the accounts run by the Russian troll factory was @Ten_GOP, a right-wing Twitter account that amassed more than 130,000 followers.

The group muddied the waters by sponsoring a handful of anti-Trump groups, including backing post-election “Trump is not my President” rallies in New York and Charlotte.

Those campaigns were pushed by a handful of fake companies the group set up in the US, as well as PayPal accounts they created under stolen or fake identities. Those accounts were then used to funnel money for both online and real-world campaigns and events, including political rallies. The origin of the campaigns was further obscured by running all of the activity through a US-based VPN.

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The indictment goes on to describe how even after a probe was launched, the group continued to operate while also seeking to cover its tracks. One of the defendants, Irina Kaverzina, was said to have written an email to her family saying: “We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the Colleagues. I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”

Investigators believe the US campaign was only a part of a much larger effort, called “Projeckt Lahkta” Internet Research Agency was running to manipulate elections and public opinion around the globe.

The charges are the first formal acknowledgement from Mueller of what many had already come to suspect and accept: that “troll” groups in Russia, with the Kremlin’s blessing, had organized in the run-up to the 2016 elections to help sow chaos in the US and stir up controversy.

Both Facebook and Twitter fessed up to taking money from the groups to run ads and promoted content, and Twitter has since admitted that thousands of Russian-controlled bot accounts were spreading propaganda aimed at Americans. ®

PS: Twitter deleted 200,000 tweets posted by Russian trolls, although you can now read them here.

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Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/16/mueller_russians_election_indictment/