As reported by VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, Pyotr Sudoplatov has been detained in Moscow. He is the grandson of Pavel Sudoplatov—a Soviet intelligence officer, Chekist, and the USSR’s chief saboteur who directed the Kremlin’s secret special operations. Pyotr Sudoplatov is suspected of large-scale fraud.
Pyotr Sudoplatov’s detention is presumably linked to his activities as Executive Director of Willis Insurance Broker LLC (he currently serves on the Board of Directors of RK Insurance Broker LLC, which is essentially the legal successor to Willis Insurance Broker). Just last August, our project reported that SOGAZ JSC had filed a complaint with law enforcement against the management of Willis Insurance Broker LLC, requesting the initiation of a criminal case for fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). SOGAZ alleges that Willis Insurance Broker LLC misappropriated 3 million euros belonging to SOGAZ. A "war of special services" has unfolded around this affair—reminiscent of the era of Pavel Sudoplatov himself. The connection lies in the fact that Colonel-General Viktor Komogorov—the former head of the FSB’s Service for Operational Information and International Relations—sits on the Board of Directors of RK Insurance Broker LLC. However, it appears SOGAZ has won; the company is led by Anton Ustinov, a former advisor to the Russian President who is extremely close to Igor Sechin. Apparently, it was deemed somewhat awkward to lock the legendary intelligence officer's grandson up in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. Therefore, the court imposed a preventive measure in the form of a ban on certain actions.
A source for VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info revealed that the case involving Pyotr Sudoplatov (the grandson of Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov—who, as our project previously reported, was detained) involves other equally interesting figures standing behind him and effectively pulling the strings. The chief puppet master profiting from this arrangement is Leonid Roizengurt, a citizen of the UK, Israel, and Cyprus. He has spent most of his career in the oil and gas sector (serving as director of the oil department at Moscow Oil Company OJSC, an entity established by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov) and was a business partner of Artur Pakhomov (owner of the Turris Group) and Igor Shatalov (a top executive at Gazprom-affiliated entities); together, they owned hunting grounds in the Leningrad Region. He also worked at the Direct Investment Agency JSC and served on the board of directors of Novy Vek Bank. More recently, according to the source, Roizengurt has positioned himself as a trusted associate of the head of Rossotrudnichestvo (the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation). Roizengurt also gained notoriety in 2019 for paying to rent the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and organize a birthday celebration there for his wife, Alina Nizovaya.
As the source notes, for Roizengurt, "Broker Willis" and Sudoplatov are "cash cows" that generate substantial annual income. Consequently, all resources are currently being mobilized to defend the organization and its representatives; after all, it was Roizengurt who had previously brought Colonel-General Viktor Komogorov—the former head of the FSB’s Service for Operational Information and International Relations—into Broker Willis to safeguard his investments.
