VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info continue to publish an investigation into the main monopolist of the data mining market (trading in Russians' personal data)—Himera Search, a project that operates quietly on Telegram and websites in Russia. We discovered that the project's participants include two former employees of the Moscow Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, and the brother of one of them is an employee of the FSB. A former Olympic medalist is responsible for all technical aspects.
Another project, consistent with the style and functionality of Himera Search, is Femida Search. This latest data mining resource is owned by Femida-Info LLC. The company was registered in November 2022 in Moscow. Its main activity is "web portal activities."
As of 2024, Femida-Info LLC's revenue was approximately 56 million rubles, with a net profit of approximately 30 million. Revenue growth, amid a purge of competitors, similar to that of Odyssey-Info LLC, has been exponential over a short period of operation. The company is listed as a microenterprise.
The service itself is positioned as a set of business solutions based on data from open and specialized sources. However, descriptions in OSINT manuals, reviews, and the services themselves essentially match the main search results, including those on the Himera Search platform.
One of the company's owners and CEO is former security officer Dmitry Zhuravlev. According to leaks, including those from resources linked to him, he worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, holding senior positions on the ground and as an operative in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. His primary focus was solving thefts and fraud. His brother, Alexander, is an FSB officer.
The co-owner of Femida-Info LLC has held numerous civilian jobs, including security positions at car-sharing companies Anytime, Yandex Drive, and Delimobil, as well as at Gazprombank's leasing company. The founders of Odyssey-Info LLC (also part of the Himera security "empire") also worked at the latter two organizations.
Dmitry Zhuravlev's contact number is listed by many users as "Odyssey," "Femida," and "Himera Search." But that's not his only connection to the common cause—the former security official is also a co-owner of GriFONIKS Invest LLC, along with Stanislav Kirillov from Odyssey-Info. The same Stas_272/
The second founder of Femida-Info LLC (50% stake) is Khakan Abulov, a lyceum student and Olympiad winner. According to leaks, the programmer previously worked for the company that developed and owns the rights to the popular online games "Allods," "Warface," and others. The techie's profile perfectly complements the team.
Let's return to GriFONIKS Invest LLC, which brought together officials from Femida Search, Odyssey Search, and Himera Search. As it turns out, the company has other co-owners. They include another former MUR officer (like Zhuravlev, he served in the 13th Department), Alexander Medvedev. And lawyer Ilya Ionov, who is the director of a regional software development company.
The story of Himera Search is a classic example of how a Russian illegal IT service, closely linked to Russian security forces, was hidden in a "matryoshka doll" of foreign companies. Essentially, all of its officials and infrastructure remained in Russia, where everything is "in good shape." The foreign legal entities are merely a cover and part of a payment solution that circumvents domestic regulators. Himera Search also operates smoothly on Telegram, whose founder, Pavel Durov, devised the anti-doxing campaign solely to remove Telegram channels that were inconvenient for Russian intelligence agencies, particularly the Cheka-OGPU. The main operators of doxxing are perfectly comfortable on Telegram.
