Many of the people on the FBI's most-wanted hacking list are Russians.
While some are alleged to work for the government and receive a normal salary, others are accused of making a fortune through ransomware attacks and online theft. If they leave Russia they will be arrested, but back home they appear to be completely free.
"We're wasting our time," I said to myself, as I looked at a cat that was devouring one of the takeaway chicken meals.
It is certain that there will be no trace of the alleged millionaire and cybercriminal in this dilapidated building in a remote town 700 kilometers east of Moscow.
But I made my way with the translator and photographer, and we pushed the cat away and entered the entrance of the building.
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When we knocked on one of the doors, a young man walked out and a curious old woman from the kitchen approached behind him.
Are you Igor Turashev? He answered no.
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"His family is registered here, so who are you?" we asked.
After a little friendly chat we explained that we were BBC journalists, and the mood suddenly changed.
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The young man said angrily, "I won't tell you where he is, and you shouldn't try to find him. You shouldn't have come here."
I did not sleep well that night thinking about the conflicting advice I received from the security personnel.
Some have said that trying to track down wanted cybercriminals on their home turf is a risky undertaking.
I was told: "They have armed guards, you'll end up in a hole somewhere, and others said I'll be fine because they're just computer geeks."
We advised everyone not to approach them.
In a press conference two years ago, the FBI named nine members of Team Evil Corp — the Russian hacking group — and accused Igor Turashev and alleged ringleader, Maxim Jacobis, of extorting more than $100 million in hacking operations. E-mail affected 40 different countries.
Victims range from small companies to multinational corporations such as Garmin, as well as charities and schools. And those are the only ones we know about.
The US Department of Justice says the men are "cyber-weapon bank robbers" who launch ransomware attacks or hack into accounts to steal money.
This ad made Maksim Yakubets, who is only 32 years old, the emblem of Russian hacking.
Footage of the gang, obtained by the UK's National Crime Agency, showed the men driving custom-made Lamborghini cars, frolicking and playing with a small cub with lots of money in front of them.
The FBI's indictment against the two men was the result of many years of work, including interviews with former gang members and the use of electronic forensics.
Some of the information dates back to 2010, when the Russian police were still willing to cooperate with their American counterparts.
However, those days are long gone now, as the Russian government routinely brushes off accusations of piracy against its own citizens.
In fact, not only are hackers allowed to continue working, but they are also recruited by the security services.
Our investigation into the case of Maxim Yakubets began in an unexpected place, a golf course about two hours from Moscow.
This was the venue for his amazing wedding in 2017 and a video of the ceremony later went viral.
To be honest, Yakubets' face was never seen in the footage shot by a wedding photography production company but he can be seen dancing to live music by a famous Russian singer in a beautiful show of lights.
Natalia, the wedding planner, didn't go into details of the Yakubits wedding, but she showed us some key sites, including a pillared building in the hills near a lake. "This is our private room," she said. "The newlyweds love to come to her to spend a romantic time there and take some pictures."
While we were driving the golf cart, I did some math.
With the little information I got, it means that this big wedding cost a lot more than the estimates I've heard previously of about $250,000.
The cost was about half a million dollars, even up to 600 thousand dollars.
We don't know how the cost of this was paid for, but if the bill was paid by Yakubets, it is an indication of the luxury of his lifestyle.
Igor Turashev, who is 40 years old, does not shy away from the limelight.
Using public records, my colleague Andrei Zakharov, a BBC Russia journalist and internet specialist, has found three companies registered under his name, all with offices in Moscow's most prestigious building, the Federation Tower, a gleaming skyscraper in the Quarter. Money, you will not see the same neither in Manhattan nor in Canary Wharf in London.
The Buhaira receptionist searched for a phone number, and found that there were no phone numbers for these offices, except for a mobile phone number with the name of the company, so she called us.
We called and waited for an answer, while the Frank Sinatra song played for five minutes, then someone answered us, pretending to be on a busy street to hang up after we told him we were journalists.
As Andrei pointed out, Turashev was not wanted in Russia, so there is no objection to him renting offices of this size and price in the city center.
It may also have been fitting for him to be among the financial firms, including those in cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, that Evil Corp. allegedly collected from victims of the ransomware attacks, one of which is said to be worth $10 million. .
A Bloomberg report, based on data from Bitcoin trade analysts, says that many companies that deal in cryptocurrencies based in the "Federal Tower" are "cash machines for cybercriminals."
We tried two other addresses associated with Turashev and another main character from Evil Corp named Dannis Gusev, and we contacted them through many means of communication such as e-mail and phone, without receiving an answer.
Andrei and I spent a long time looking for the workplace of Maxim Yakubets.
He used to work as a manager of his mother's company for feeding cows, but it seems that he is not a business owner these days or does not have a company registered in his name, but we found addresses that he may still live at, so we went to one of them one night and knocked on the door.
In one of the titles, a man laughed on the intercom when we told him who we were and where we came from.
He replied, "Maxim Yakubets hasn't lived here for about 15 years. I'm his father."
To our surprise, he walked out into the lobby and gave an emotional 20-minute interview on camera, angrily denouncing the US authorities for accusing his son.
The father said the $5 million reward for information that could lead to his son's arrest - the highest reward ever for a cybercriminal - led the family to live in constant fear of being attacked, and we demanded that his statement be published.
"The Americans created a problem for my family and for many of our relatives and friends. What's the point? American justice has become more like Soviet justice. He was not questioned or interviewed and there were no proceedings proving him guilty."
He denied that his son is a cybercriminal.
When I asked him about the source of his son's wealth, he laughed, saying that I overestimated his wedding costs and that luxury cars were rented, adding that Maxim's salary was above average because he "works, gets paid, and has a job."
I asked him what does your son do? He replied, "Why should I tell you about our private lives?"
He said he had not had contact with his son since the indictment was issued, so he could not arrange contact between us and him.
Jakubets and Turashev are part of a growing list of Russian citizens to be subject to cyber sanctions as the West struggles to respond to cyberattacks.
More Russians and Russian authorities have been punished and convicted than any other country.
The indictments prevent hackers from traveling abroad, freeze their property and funds in the West, and prevent them from dealing with Western companies under the sanctions.
Last year, the European Union began issuing cybercrime sanctions, following in the footsteps of the United States, and the Russians were the first to be named and stigmatized on this list as well.
The vast majority of people on these lists are said to have direct links to the Russian government, and hack for the sake of espionage, power, or pressure. While all nations hack each other's information, the European Union, the United States, and its allies claim that some Russian attacks go too far.
Some of the men are accused of causing widespread blackouts in Ukraine by hacking into power grids. and others wanted for attempting to breach a chemical weapons testing facility following the Salisbury Novichok attack in the UK.
The Kremlin denies all accusations and routinely derides them as just Western hysteria called "Russophobia".
Because there are no clear rules as to what is or is not acceptable when it comes to hacking country information, our investigations have intentionally focused on individuals accused of being criminal hackers for profit.
So, do cybercrime penalties imposed on “criminals” hackers succeed?
When talking to Jakubits' father, the punishments seemed to have some effect, at least made him angry, but Evil Corp didn't seem to be affected.
Cybersecurity researchers claim that the group continues to conduct profitable cyberattacks on mainly Western targets.
The “golden rule” of Russian hacking, according to researchers and former hackers, is that criminal hackers not in government positions can hack into the accounts of whomever they like, as long as the victims are not in Russian-speaking regions or former Soviet countries.
The rule appears to be working, as for many years cybersecurity researchers have noticed fewer attacks in those countries. They have also discovered that some hacking software is designed to avoid computers whose systems use the Russian language.
Lilia Yaparova, an investigative reporter for Medusa, one of the country's few independent news organizations, says the golden rule is useful for intelligence services, as they can then exploit the skills hackers have developed when working for them.
"For the FSB, recruiting hackers in Russia is more beneficial than putting them in jail. One of my sources, a former FSB officer, told me that he personally tried to recruit some guys from Evil Corp to do some work for him."
The US alleges that Maxim Yakubets and other wanted hackers, including Yevgeny Pugachev (the US has offered a $3 million reward for his arrest), worked directly with the intelligence services.
It may not be a coincidence that the father-in-law, who appears in the wedding video, is a former high-ranking member of the Federal Security Service.
We asked the Russian government to comment on the fact that hackers are operating freely in Russia, but we have not received any response.
When Vladimir Putin was asked about this at the Geneva summit with Joe Biden this summer, he denied that major cyberattacks originated in his country, and even claimed that most of the cyberattacks originated from the United States. But he said he would work with the United States to "impose order".
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In the past six months, the United States and its allies have bypassed sanctions and begun to use much more aggressive tactics.
They have begun hacking into the operations of cybercrime syndicates and have succeeded in taking some of them offline, at least temporarily.
The hacking group REvil and the hacking group DarkSide announced on the forums that they have stopped working under the law.
On two occasions, US government hackers managed to recover millions of dollars in embezzled bitcoin from victims.
International efforts, in which Europol and the US Department of Justice participated, also resulted in the arrest of pirates in South Korea, Kuwait, Romania and Ukraine.
But cybersecurity researchers say that more groups are appearing on the scene, that attacks are happening every week, and that this phenomenon will not go away as long as hackers can thrive and operate in Russia.
