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Rubio Hired Tech Firm Months After Its Alleged Russia Ties First Emerged

The deal came on the same day the company filed a $1.85 million lawsuit against the former employee who first raised concerns.

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By Will Neal

Marco Rubio handed a fresh deal to a scandal-hit tech company months after officials were first warned about its Kremlin links.

Prosecutors have charged Oxygen Forensics’ CEO Lee Reiber with “concealing from U.S. government agencies” that his company was “owned and controlled” by Russians, the Justice Department announced last week.

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It came after claims about the firm’s ties to Putin circulated around federal agencies for months. U.S. officials were alarmed that such a firm supplied phone-hacking software to federal departments, law enforcement, and national security agencies.

Russia is rethinking negotiations with Ukraine after Moscow got pummeled by strikes, Vladimir Putin announced in a stumbling statement to reporters. The 73-year-old Russian president appeared confused as he addressed the media in Saint Petersburg in the aftermath of Ukraine’s largest-ever drone attack on Moscow, which occurred on the last day of voting in Russia’s parliamentary elections last weekend. Putin was seemingly on edge as he spoke to reporters, at times losing his train of thought as he spoke about the strikes. “What has happened lately is also well known to everyone. On the night of Sept. 19 to 20, that is, on the main voting day, an attempt was made at a massive strike on Moscow,” he said. Last Sunday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said it shot down more than 1,900 drones, eight guided aerial bombs, eight cruise missiles, and four rockets, killing at least three people and damaging a major oil refinery in Moscow. The attack was Ukraine’s biggest one ever, though Kyiv did not confirm the number of drones and projectiles it fired. Ukrainian General Staff later said the main target was the Moscow Oil Refinery, which was forced to halt its output. “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night,” Zelensky said in a statement on Telegram at the time. He said the facilities targeted were raking in “billions of dollars that sustain the war machine.” Putin warned Ukraine that there would be consequences. "They are the ones who started it. Everywhere, on every front. Are these playthings, child's play?" Putin told reporters. "They should therefore be made to feel Russia's retaliatory strikes and understand that no provocative actions, no stirring up the situation to secure a result will work. They're only making things worse for themselves." However, Putin maintained that all of Ukraine’s proposals remained “on the table.” "They are all on the table. It's all possible," he said. "But after everything they have done, we will still have to think carefully about what we need to do in response." “Judging by everything, the retaliatory actions of the Russian armed forces turned out to be so sensitive and destructive for the enemy that now they are once again actively raising the issue of negotiations on several fronts,” he continued. Putin also appeared to be at a loss as to why Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the warehouses of Ozon and Wildberries—massive online retailers dubbed the “Amazon of Russia” that sell goods and services equal to about 8.5% of Russia's GDP, according to Reuters. “Strikes on Wildberries or Ozon warehouses—what is that? What's the point? After that, we started responding to each instance," he said.

The group behind Oxygen Forensics allegedly supplied software to Putin's spies at the same time as working for the U.S. government.

Anastasia Barashkova/REUTERS

Despite the repeated warnings, the State Department gave them a new contract—on the same day Oxygen filed a lawsuit against the former employee who publicly raised the issue.

The $50,000 deal was reached on Aug. 28, while Oxygen was suing Max Weissberg for more than $1.85 million in damages, according to PunchUp, the Daily Beast’s sister Substack.

Weissberg began publicly airing his claims in late February, posting on LinkedIn and Reddit while contacting Oxygen’s employees and customers directly. He later released a 15-minute YouTube video in June, claiming the company was secretly Russian-owned, had links to the FSB, and had duped U.S. law enforcement agencies into buying software developed in Russia.

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The group flatly denied Weissberg’s allegations in its August lawsuit and asked the court to stop him from repeating them, court filings show. It said multiple government customers had contacted the firm about Weissberg from as early as Feb. 23, and that a document had started circulating inside DHS and other agencies.

The State Department awarded Oxygen the new $50,000 contract through the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia, according to federal procurement data. The deal, which runs until September 2027, was for software for a Justice Department program that trains and advises foreign law-enforcement agencies, and was awarded without competition.

PunchUp asked the State Department whether it knew of concerns among other federal departments and agencies over Weissberg’s claims about Oxygen’s true ownership when it awarded the August contract, and if not, why.

A spokesperson for the department said only that it is “aware” of the allegations against Oxygen, and that it “takes seriously the security of its systems and the integrity of its procurement processes.” It referred further questions to the DOJ.

Authorities detained Reiber, 55, in Idaho on Sept. 20 at around the same time as Sergeyevich Davydov, 52, one of the Russian nationals allegedly behind the group, was arrested at London Heathrow Airport in the U.K. Reiber has since been released on bail.

Both men face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud over Oxygen’s dealings with the Defense Department and agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, including the Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, its Office of Inspector General, and the National Computer Forensics Institute. The U.S. is expected to request Davydov’s extradition.

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche holds a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 15, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The DOJ, under Todd Blanche, plans to prosecute two Oxygen executives for allegedly lying to government agencies about the company's ownership.

Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS

Prosecutors accuse Oxygen of pretending to be an “independent, U.S.-based company” when it was, in fact, owned and controlled by Davydov and four others through a holding company in Cyprus. They allegedly concealed their ownership of the firm after the U.S. imposed sanctions in response to President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The five Russians allegedly continued throughout that period to provide digital forensics technology to Kremlin customers, including the Russian Investigative Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB. PunchUp has contacted Oxygen’s lawyers for comment on those claims.

Federal records had already classified Oxygen as a foreign-owned U.S. company two years earlier, identifying Cyprus-based Oxygen Forensics Limited as its immediate owner. The group had also previously worked with State, under a $180,000 contract awarded in May of last year.

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.

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