Russian Oligarch Scandal And Data Breach Crisis, A Challenge For Cannabis Regulators

Grant Smith Ellis, a blogger who has been writing about marijuana since 2017, recently published a post that included confidential internal communications among members of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission regarding an investigation into possible financial ties between Curaleaf Holdings Inc CURLF and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a close ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Ellis received internal communications and 17,000 rows of personal data on cannabis employees due to an error by the commission; the personal data was not made public. Several days later, officials from the commission asked Ellis to remove parts of the post due to safety concerns.

The data breach was reported in the Massachusetts cannabis industry when thousands of workers received official emails notifying them, according to GBH News.

Personal information such as names, home addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth of every cannabis worker in the state was unintentionally released through agency documents by the Cannabis Control Commission.

The dataset contained information about former employees, including reasons for their departure, such as alleged violations of company policies. Many workers were concerned about their safety and were unaware that the breach was connected to an investigation involving Abramovich and Smith Ellis.

“They asked me to take the story down due to safety concerns (…) they basically said that leaving this information up could put people at risk,” Smith Ellis recently told GBH News. “I think if there is a threat here to an agency of the state government, that is bigger than just those staff members in that agency, this is about the United States of America and the integrity of this republic. If it was attacked, I want to know.” 

According to a spokesperson, Ellis agreed to remove the files from his computer and the commission began reviewing its standard operating procedures and public records to prevent a recurrence of the situation.

“This is now a series of fires on several different fronts, but at this point, the best thing is, to be honest,” a government official said. “This was a mistake. This should have never happened. This was avoidable. This was preventable. And we're going to suffer the consequences as a result.”

Photo: Courtesy Of Markus Spiske On Unsplash