ANALYSIS:
A Northern Virginia software CEO duped U.S. front-line defense agencies, including the president’s personal security team, by claiming American ownership when Russians actually owned and operated the tech company and wrote the code, new court files show.
Oxygen Forensics of Alexandria sold the exported Russian digital forensics software to the Defense Department and to key branches of the Department of Homeland Security, including the Secret Service.
The Russian-built software could perform the tricky tasks of cracking passwords and exfiltrating data from digital devices without leaving a trace. The Moscow-based developers sold the same software products to high-ranking Russian agencies, such as the Federal Security Service — the successor to the KGB — under different branding than the versions sold to the Secret Service.
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The duplicity occurred as the U.S. was highly suspicious of using any Kremlin-approved digital products.
“Oxygen Russia thus sold the same software under different branding to the Russian security services that Oxygen US was concurrently selling to U.S. federal law enforcement agencies,” a Commerce Department special agent said in a court affidavit reviewed by The Washington Times.
For all the Defense Department and Homeland Security Department knew, Oxygen Forensics was led by Lee Reiber, a 55-year-old tech executive living in Boise, Idaho, who was a former Boise police detective and digital forensics examiner. He repeatedly assured the government that his company was American-owned and its products were produced in the U.S., the Justice Department said in a statement issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.
Yet prosecutors allege the true owner was Oleg Sergeyevich Davydov, a Moscow resident and Kremlin contractor, and four other Russians who built the software in Russia, not America.
Mr. Reiber was arrested Sept. 20 in Idaho and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Mr. Davydov was at Heathrow Airport on Sept. 20, about to board a flight to Istanbul, when he was nabbed.
“Oxygen Forensics held itself out to the U.S. government as being an independent, U.S.-based company,” the Justice Department said. “In fact, Davydov and four other Russian nationals owned and controlled the company through a holding company based in Cyprus.”
The statement said the department is not alleging the Russian-created code was used to hack the Secret Service or other U.S. agencies, but it does not address whether the Russians gained insight into how the Homeland Security Department and the Secret Service conduct criminal investigations.
Here is how the scam worked:
Oleg Davydov co-founded a software company, Oxygen Software LLC, in 2000. Oxygen Software provided software to the highest levels of the Kremlin’s security force: the FSB and the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry. Mr. Davydov and his four associates also owned a separate Russian company. In 2022, Oxygen Software was renamed MKO Systems LLC.
The date was important. In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine. The Biden administration imposed sanctions on Russian companies.
Mr. Davydov concealed Russian ownership in Oxygen Forensics in Virginia by installing Mr. Reiber as CEO and chairman of the board. Mr. Davydov’s name disappeared from public documents.
Here is how Mr. Reiber allegedly carried out the fraud, according to the Justice Department:
• In December 2022 and again in October 2023, he falsely certified to the U.S. that Oxygen had no immediate or highest-ranking owner. At the time, Oxygen had a pending contract with the Secret Service’s National Computer Forensics Institute. Two years later, a five-year contract worth up to $12 million came through.
• In July 2024, Mr. Reiber allegedly lied again, authorizing Oxygen to certify to the Defense Department that no foreigner controlled the firm, when prosecutors say the Russians were making all the decisions.
“As Mr. Reiber then knew, the company’s Russian owners were foreign persons who controlled its decisions and one of them had recently been appointed to its board under a Turkish identity,” the Justice Department said.
• In March 2026, Mr. Reiber allegedly told the Homeland Security Department that no Russians were involved in developing the software and that no one in Russia had access to the environment in which it was built, when prosecutors say Mr. Davydov directed the projects there.
According to the affidavit reviewed by The Times, the deceit went deeper.
The Russian owners allegedly laundered one comrade as a Turk with a new name so he could work for Oxygen in Alexandria.
The affidavit said, “He rejoined Oxygen US’s executive management and Board of Directors in November 2024 but under a different name and identity, using a Turkish passport he had obtained in 2023. … In truth, Oxygen US was owned and controlled by Davydov and the other four shareholders, who were Russian nationals and residents.”
Even before 2022, the U.S. became suspicious of any Russian-produced software.
“Reiber knew from 2018 that the U.S. Government had security concerns about Russian-developed software, and he was told in writing in January 2024 that foreign government customers would not buy the forensic software if its development in Russia were disclosed,” the affidavit said.
The affidavit said Mr. Reiber deliberately deceived the Secret Service.
The special agent, assigned to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, said, “While the code continued to be written, reviewed, and managed by the team in Russia, Reiber thereafter caused Oxygen US to present itself to the Secret Service as a ’forensic software development company’ and ’an American company,’ and in 2026 he and Oxygen US’s Vice President of Operations told DHS that no member of the development team was based in Russia and that no person in Russia had any role in developing the software or any access to its development environment. Reiber understood that disclosure of the truth would end Oxygen US’s business with the U.S. government customers.”
In February, former Oxygen Forensics employee Max Weissberg came forward in a YouTube video, alleging the company was Russian-owned. The next month, an undercover agent posed as a Homeland Security Department contracting employee and spoke with Mr. Reiber by phone. Mr. Reiber allegedly asserted that no Russian was involved in any software application.
The Times submitted a query to the Homeland Security Department asking whether the Russian-supplied software performed as contracted and contained no unauthorized functionality. The Times did not receive a reply. The department’s X account and its press release archive do not address the Russian case.
Mr. Reiber’s X social media page has no recent posts. Oxygen Forensics has posted this month on product demonstrations in Budapest and Germany, and a “training bonanza” at the Alexandria headquarters. The company’s webpage appears to have been taken down.
In 2005, The Washington Post quoted Mr. Reiber in a report about the rich trove of information that can be harvested from an active or a deleted and discarded mobile phone.
The report said: “Lee Reiber, a Boise, Idaho, police detective specializing in cellphone forensics, has used recovered phone data to crack homicide, child abuse, domestic abuse cases. This year alone he has examined more than 100 phones in criminal and civil investigations and recovered data from 90 percent of them, he said. A man suspected of being a pedophile was undone by his phone. ’We had all his pictures,’ Reiber said.”
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