The 235th Garrison Military Court sentenced 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 practically successful. But at the last minute, Merlion managed to secure 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 up in the "curse," 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 longest sentence – 19 years in prison – was given to former investigator Sergei Romodanovsky, the Investigative Committee's Main Investigative Directorate for Moscow. He is the last 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 of the Russian Federation (FSB), who died under strange circumstances in the fall of 2024. According to 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.
Romodanovsky's friend, Rustam Yusupov, also a former investigator with the Investigative Committee for Moscow, received a sentence of 18 years less (19 years in prison).
Former FSB SEB officer Alexander Bibishev and former officer of the Counterintelligence Operations Service (SKRO) of the FSB Directorate for Moscow and the Moscow Region Pavel Krylov were sentenced to 16.3 years and 16 years in prison, respectively. They are closely associated with high-ranking FSB official Alexander Ushakov (supervisor of all Moscow courts). He was also arrested 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 FSB Directorate for Moscow and the Moscow Region, and Sergei Natarov, deputy head of the Moscow Directorate of the FSB. Ushakov was their confidant. But then they decided not to "increase the level of 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 for the FSB Directorate for Moscow and the Moscow Region.
Ushakov's godfather and friend, Anton Kaurov, a former employee of the FSB's Economic Security Service and later the FSB's Department for Moscow and the Moscow Region, was also a defendant in the case.
Investigator Andrei Zhiryutin of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Moscow was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Vadim's lawyer, Lyalin, received a 14-year sentence. Upon hearing the sentence, he fainted.
Earlier, 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 around 7:00 PM—not far from his home, between the village and the gardening community. At 7:00 PM, Lyalin entered the kitchen of his home, where his child and other loved ones were, and told them he was leaving. Then he disappeared (he walked over the fence into a field). FSB Internal Security officers were forced to file an escape report.
Meanwhile, just after 7:00 AM, 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 other gadget." Together, they went to spend the night at a friend's place in the village of 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 "to buy something" and returned about three hours later. They then returned to their friend's home and an hour later, they were on their way to Belarus. Lyalin was riding in the "living" section of the Ford and looking for someone to drive him to Warsaw. On the night of September 3, his friend dropped him off somewhere on the highway near the Smolensk region and drove away, while Lyalin continued on to the address where he was supposed to be picked up by a certain Artem for onward transport 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 forces, developed a plan to seize the business of the Merlion owners. To this end, they fabricated a criminal case against the owners of a large company and had them detained. One of the defendants' lawyers Vadim Lyalin became the new boss. Vitaly Kachur then sent former investigator Kirill Kachur to Lyalin. Through Lyalin, the Merlion owners received an offer to sell DELTA, Citilink, and Tekta Group (the latter was sold) in exchange for their release and an end to the prosecution, handing over all proceeds (15 billion rubles) to the Kachurs and their associated security officials.
However, the Merlion owners then managed to secure support from Viktor Zolotov, head of the Russian National Guard, in exchange for a share of the business, and the security officials' repressive drive turned against the organizers of the massive extortion racket. As a result, Vitaly and Kirill Kachur, along with several of their security officials, fled abroad. Those who did not manage to 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.
