Flashy cars, expensive clothes: More on Karim Baratov
In the photo, Karim Baratov leans against his sleek black Mercedes, which is parked next to his vanity-plated Aston Martin in the driveway of his Ancaster home.
Baratov, 22, was led down this same driveway by Toronto police on Tuesday, neighbours say.
On Wednesday, the United States Department of Justice announced that Baratov had been indicted, along with two Russian intelligence officers and a Russian man once on the FBI’s Most Wanted Cyber Criminals list, in connection with a hack of 500 million Yahoo accounts. None of the charges have been proven in court.
Carmelo Truscello, who answered the phone at the office of Baratov’s lawyer Amadeo DiCarlo, said that the case is only at its initial stage and that the allegations are unproven.
If convicted on his most serious charge, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Baratov could face a maximum of 20 years in jail.
In scouring extensive social media accounts that appear to belong to Baratov, examining property records and speaking with neighbours and former classmates, a profile has emerged of the young Canadian of Kazakh origin caught up in this major crossborder digital crime.
Social media entries that appear to have been posted by Baratov portray the life of a wealthy young man with money to burn on luxury cars, arm-length tattoos and performance-enhancing workout supplements.
Ministry of Transportation documents show that Baratov has, at various times in the past five years, affixed his “Mr Karim” vanity licence plate to an Aston Martin, a Porsche, an Audi, a Lamborghini, a Mercedes Benz and three BMWs.
Classmates recalled that Baratov began driving flashy cars and wearing expensive clothes in high school.
“He had the biggest amount of disposable income that I’d ever seen for a person that age,” said Jake Hagen, who started going to school with Baratov in Grade 7.
“He bought his friends everything (like) clothes, and he’d take them all out to dinner,” Hagen added, noting that Baratov was “just really weird” as a teen.
“He was a guy who very much understood that he was very well off and that people hung out with him because he had money.”
Avian Yuen said he was “impressed” by Baratov’s money and found him to be a polite and introverted kid who obviously had a talent for computer programming.
In an online Q&A that appears to have been hosted by Baratov, he says he is a professional programmer and that he is active in the stock market.
“At 14 I was making more than both of my parents combined. At 15 I got my first million,” he writes.
A link on a Facebook page that appears to belong to Baratov leads to elitespace.net, a Russian-language website that offers web servers and web hosting services to people in Russia and China.
Vehicle records show that in 2016, Baratov took out loans of over $104,000 and $65,000 for a 2009 Aston Martin and 2013 Mercedes, respectively.
If Baratov is convicted, U.S. authorities will seize all assets that are considered to be the proceeds of crime, the Department of Justice said in its indictment.
That includes the Aston Martin, the Mercedes and all funds held in a PayPal account that belongs to Baratov and is registered in the name of his company Elite Space Corporation.
Property records show that in 2015, Baratov and a middle-aged married couple named Akhmet Tokbergenov and Dinara Tokbergenova bought a home in an Ancaster subdivision for $642,500, taking out a mortgage of $514,000 that has not yet been paid off.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Baratov also goes by the names “Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov” and “Karim Taloverov.”
The home was listed for sale two days ago for about $930,000 but was abruptly delisted Wednesday.
In a handful of Instagram and Facebook posts, Baratov flexes his arm muscles and details his 11 weekly visits to the gym.
Neighbours said Baratov lives alone in the modern, two-storey house, and has little contact with them.
“We thought there was something strange about him,” said Kerry Carter, who lives two doors down. “How did such a young guy have so many cars?”
In a Facebook post that appears to have been made by Baratov, he boasts that being suspended from high school for “threatening to kill my ex-friend as a joke,” gave him enough spare time to build up his business.
In the post, he claims he later got himself expelled from school, saying that it “changed my life to better.”
Jeff Josiph described Baratov as one of his closest friends but, when asked what Baratov does for a living said, “I don’t pay attention to his work life. I hung out with him because he was a good guy.”