The prosecutor’s office claims that the young man followed the instructions of criminals from abroad and personally tried to bribe a Tesla employee. According to the FBI, the planned extortion attack on the carmaker was stopped in time. “The rapid response of the company and the FBI prevented widespread data theft and halted the extortion plan in its infancy,” the prosecutor’s office said.
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The young Russian was trying to get a Tesla employee to work with when he was in the USA for five weeks in the summer with a tourist visa. He said in court in September that the Russian government knew about the plan. However, neither the FBI nor lawyers have made any allegations about the blackmail plan’s connection to the Kremlin, the BBC writes.
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The young man and his accomplices allegedly intended to place the stolen secret information on the Internet if the company refused to pay the ransom. An employee whom the Russian was trying to bribe informed about Tesla’s plan. The carmaker subsequently contacted the FBI.
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