Misha Japaridze, Pool / AP
Friday, Feb. 16, 2018 | 2:54 p.m.
MOSCOW — One of the 13 Russians indicted for U.S. election interference is a wealthy Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is known in Russia as "Putin's chef." He once owned a hot dog stand and went on to become a wealthy businessman and restaurateur.
Prigozhin has been charged by the U.S. government as part of a vast and wide-ranging effort to sway political opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
According to the indictment, Prigozhin and his companies provided significant funding to the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based troll farm that allegedly used bogus social media postings and advertisements fraudulently purchased in the name of Americans to try to influence the White House race.