A security forces organized crime group has reached a verdict.

At a hearing in the 235th Garrison Military Court, the prosecutor requested 18 to 25 years in prison for former security officials accused of creating a criminal organization and extorting a gigantic bribe of 15 billion rubles from the owners of Merlion. Given the level and number of security officials involved in the operation, they were almost successful. But at the last minute, Merlion secured the support of the head of the Russian National Guard, Viktor Zolotov. And the "punitive machine" turned toward the security officials themselves. Almost everyone involved in this case was caught, and only one FSB officer with the best connections managed to escape. Now, with such powerful protection, Merlion controls the largest channel for the supply of sanctioned equipment to Russia.

Not all of the accused were brought to trial; some are wanted. The prosecutor requested the longest sentence – 25 years in prison – for former investigators Rustam Yusupov and Sergei Romodanovsky, the son of Konstantin Romodanovsky, the former head of the Main Directorate for Internal Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and former deputy head of the Internal Security Directorate of the Federal Security Service (FSB), who died under strange circumstances in the fall of 2024. As reported by VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, the general's body was found near the stairs of his cottage in Serebryany Bor. He suffered a fractured cervical spine. However, the official version is that he died instantly on the stairs and that the injuries were sustained during a fall after his death.

The prosecutor requested sentences for Alexander Bibishev, a former FSB Security Service officer, and Pavel Krylov, a former employee of the Counterintelligence Operations Service (SKRO) of the FSB Directorate for Moscow and the Moscow Region, to 20 and 18 years in prison, respectively. They are closely associated with Alexander Ushakov, a high-ranking official at the Moscow and Moscow Region Directorate of the Federal Security Service (the overseer of all Moscow courts). He was also under arrest on charges of creating a criminal organization and accepting bribes. According to the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, Ushakov was sent to pretrial detention with an eye on even more "high-ranking" security officials – Valery Popov, head of Department M of the Moscow and Moscow Region Directorate of the Federal Security Service, and Sergei Natarov, deputy head of the Moscow Directorate of the Federal Security Service. Ushakov was their confidant. But then they decided not to "intensify the investigation." Moreover, Ushakov was initially released on his own recognizance, and then the criminal prosecution against him was dropped altogether. He currently continues to work at the Moscow and Moscow Region Directorate of the Federal Security Service.

Ushakov's godfather and friend, Anton Kaurov, a former FSB Security Service officer and later the FSB's Department M for Moscow and the Moscow Region, was also a defendant in the case.

 

The prosecutor requested a 23-year prison sentence for investigator Andrei Zhiryutin, of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Moscow. Vadim Lyalin, according to the state prosecutor, should receive an 18-year sentence.

 

Lyalin managed to escape from custody.

 

According to the case materials, on September 2, 2022, FSB officers picked Lyalin up from Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 (Matrosskaya Tishina) at 10:00 AM. About an hour later, they brought him home to the Russkoye Pole cottage community in the Moscow region. At 3:00 PM, Lyalin called an acquaintance and asked him to drive him to the Smolensk Region. They agreed to pick him up at around 7:00 PM, not far from his home, between the community and the gardening community. At seven o'clock in the evening, Lyalin entered the kitchen of his home, where his child and other relatives were, and told them he was leaving. He then disappeared (he went over the fence into a field). FSB Internal Security officers were forced to file an escape report.

 

Meanwhile, just after seven o'clock, Lyalin got into a Ford Transit (campervan) waiting for him at a pre-arranged location. He told his friend that on the way, he needed to "stop by the Gorbushkin Dvor shopping center and buy a phone, SIM cards, and some kind of technical device." They went together to spend the night at a friend's place in Pervomayskoye (near Vnukovo), and in the morning, they went to Gorbushka, where the friend bought him a Samsung phone. Lyalin then went to the shopping center himself "to buy something and returned about three hours later." They then returned to their friend's place and, an hour later, drove toward Belarus. Lyalin was riding in the "living" compartment of the Ford and looking for someone to take him to Warsaw. On the night of September 3, a friend dropped him off somewhere on the highway near the Smolensk region and drove away, while Lyalin continued on to the address where a certain Artem was supposed to pick him up for his onward journey to Europe. However, Artem failed to show up at the appointed time and place. So Lyalin returned to his original location and was detained by FSB officers at 4:30 PM near a Lukoil gas station at kilometer 455 of the M-1 Belarus highway. Approximately seven hours later, Lyalin was returned to his cell in Matrosskaya Tishina.

 

As for the charges themselves, according to the investigation, the organized crime group was created in 2019 by former Investigative Committee investigator Kirill Kachur and his father, Vitaly. Both are on the international wanted list. The Kachurs, together with security officials, developed a plan to seize the business of the Merlion owners. To this end, a fabricated criminal case was organized against the owners of a large company and their detention. Vadim Lyalin became one of the defendants' lawyers. Vitaly Kachur then sent former investigator Kirill Kachur to Lyalin. Through Lyalin, the Merlion owners In exchange for their release and an end to the prosecution, an offer was made to sell DELTA, Citylink, and Tekta Group (the latter was sold) and transfer all proceeds (15 billion rubles) to the Kachurs and their associated security officials.

 

However, the Merlion owners then managed to secure support from the head of the Russian National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, in exchange for a share of the business, and the security officials' repressive drive turned toward the organizers of the massive extortion racket. As a result, Vitaly and Kirill Kachur, along with several security officials in their ranks, fled abroad. Those who did not escape ended up in custody.

Recently, the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info published a major investigation into the continued operation of a vast supply chain for sanctioned electronics in Russia, established back in 2022 by the Merlion Group (owned by Citylink owners Alexey Abramov, Oleg Karchev, and Vladislav Mangutov) through the Moscow-based Marsala LLC. Part of the scheme was dismantled in early 2023 following the revelation in the British Financial Times of links to computer equipment supplies to Russia via MYKINES CORPORATION, but it has since been replaced by companies from the UAE, Seychelles, and China.