The Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info have obtained an old, but no less interesting, interrogation report of shadow banker Kirill Nikitin, who died under strange circumstances while rowing on the Moskva River. The document reveals that Nikitin was friends with and interacted with the entire top echelon of the money laundering and cashing market, operating under the close supervision of representatives of the FSB and the Central Bank. Many of the "heroes" of those times now hold the rank of general and occupy high-ranking positions.

 

Our project has learned details of Nikitin's death on the Moskva River. None of the other rowers who trained with him knew his true identity. He introduced himself to everyone as an ordinary pensioner, claiming to have been a lawyer. His partner, Mikhail Beknazarov, was his friend and had been rowing since the age of 16. They had been swimming and training together all this time.

Beknazarov is now a driving instructor, and training (along with Nikitin) had to be adjusted around his work schedule. The rowers would set out early in the morning, before Beknazarov's shift.

 

On the day of the accident, it was their first outing of the new season. The route hadn't changed—the usual swim to Moscow City and back, which they had been doing for years.

The accident occurred near the Fili pier, and accounts of how it happened vary. Pier staff claim they signaled the rowers from the shore to leave the water.

According to Beknazarov, the moored vessel began moving backwards without warning. The light boat ended up in the path of the propellers, and Nikitin was killed by them.

Beknazarov managed to reach shore.

 

Kirill Nikitin has repeatedly been implicated in various bank busting, money laundering, and cash-out cases, but he always managed to escape unscathed.

 

For example, in 2006-2007, he was part of a group led by then-leading shadow bankers Evgeny Dvoskin and Ivan Myazin, which laundered 2 trillion rubles in a single year. The banks used in the illegal operations included Europrominvest, Belkom, Neman, Migros, Discount, Antares, Rubin, Novokubansky, Diamond, Pico Bank, Siberian Bank for Economic Development, Yaroslav Bank, Falcon, Alliance, Intelfinance, Kitezh, and others (all of these banks later had their licenses revoked for money laundering). This group also included bankers Alexey Frenkel, Sergey Zakharov ("Ryzhiy"), Alexey Kulikov, Georgy Shkurko, and Belozerov ("Flamingo," a former employee of the Federal Tax Service of Russia). Almost all of these individuals are mentioned in Nikitin's testimony. He also mentions Boris Fomin. He held positions at various banks, most recently as chairman of the board of Promsberbank. The bank belonged to Kulikov and Myazin. After his arrest, Fomin entered into a plea bargain with investigators, testifying that billions of dollars were laundered through various banks and accused Myazin of "covering up the activities of investment companies to funnel funds abroad through his connections in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation." He also testified against Tim Wiswell, a former top manager at Deutsche Bank and a US citizen, who allegedly participated in money laundering.

At one time, investigators suspected this entire group of involvement in the murder of Andrei Kozlov, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, but of the bankers, only Frenkel was imprisoned for this crime.

 

The other bankers proved to be untouchable figures. Operational support for the Kozlov murder case was provided by Dmitry Frolov, then deputy head of the department of the FSB's Directorate "K," who also acted as a "protector" for Kulikov, Myazin, Dvoskin, Nikitin, and others. The entire group also enjoyed the powerful support of the Sixth Service of the FSB's Internal Security Directorate and the FSB's Directorate "M." Many of the officers who interacted with this group at the time hold high-ranking positions. For example, Igor Nikolaev, then deputy head of the FSB's Directorate "M," is now the head of the FSB's Sverdlovsk Region Directorate (here he is in the photo shaking Putin's hand). Ivan Tkachev, who held the position of head of the Sixth Service at the time, is now the head of the FSB's Far Eastern Military-Corruption Department.