This is the story of Artem Lifshits, a Project Lakhta conspirator who participated in stealing U.S. persons’ identities and using them to undertake targeted efforts of undermining faith in U.S. democratic institutions and for self enrichment.

On 10 September, 2020, the Department of Justice reported that it had charged Artem Lifshits, a Russian national, for his alleged role in a conspiracy to use the stolen identities of real U.S. persons to open fraudulent accounts at banking and cryptocurrency exchanges. The DOJ specifically charged Lifshits for stealing identities to facilitate the funding of Project Lakhta’s misinformation campaigns and for personal gain. 

Who is Artem Lifshits?

Artem Mikhaylovich Lifshits is a 1992-born Russian national. He studied Bachelor of Economics at Saint Petersburg State University. Lifshits applied to work for Project Lakhta in 2015 soon after graduating. Beginning around January 2017, he became a manager in the “Translator Department,” which engaged in social media campaigns designed to stoke political division among Americans. He is alleged to be responsible for much of Project Lakhta’s influence operations.