The Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info learned of a secret criminal case from 10 years ago involving a murder, in which the main defendants are former senator Vitaly Malkin and Sberbank CEO German Gref. It was because of this story that the former friends Gref and Malkin became embroiled in a dispute, leading to Malkin leaving to live in Monaco. And because of Gref's name, the relatives of the missing (murdered) man have been unable to obtain justice for over a decade.
Then-member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation from Buryatia and banker Vitaly Malkin (he was banned from entering Canada due to ties to organized crime) founded the Arkhangelskoye DNP (DNP) with his wife, Natalya Bondarenko, and former Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo in the eponymous health complex of the Presidential Property Management Department in the village of Voskresenskoye. Right at his registered address, building 54, the billionaire and his neighbors (German Gref, Vladimir Rushailo, Mikhail Fradkov, and later Alexei Kudrin and others) organized a private spa, where VIPs regularly spent their evenings in the company of women or men.
VIPs were also constantly settling into state dachas there: in 2011, Vitaly Malkin and German Gref simultaneously began renovations on their own homes. Igor Bychkov (pictured), a close associate of the Buryatia senator, was appointed to oversee the renovations of the two mansions. He was previously responsible for the development and later the operation of the private spa. Bychkov served as Vitaly Malkin's personal "adjutant," a special assistant, and had worked for him since his time as a seven-banker, working at both Rossiysky Kredit Bank and Impexbank. He was a completely unremarkable person, and then mysteriously disappeared. For some reason, his disappearance went unnoticed in Arkhangelsk. Or rather, as it later turned out, they pretended not to notice. And so the Bychkov family began their debt-ridden and dangerous journey through the authorities.
At the end of 2011, Igor Bychkov's wife contacted the police, reporting her husband missing. He had walked his son to school that morning and was returning home on foot past School No. 119 (Southwestern Administrative Okrug). Around the same time, eyewitnesses contacted the local police station and reported witnessing a strange scene: several men approached a passerby, identified themselves as police officers, and forced him into a Zhiguli. The "detainee" screamed and struggled unsuccessfully, while the "capture team" was dressed in civilian clothes and did not present any documents.
The police realized Bychkov hadn't been on the loose. His wife was immediately questioned, and she revealed that her husband worked for some rather prominent individuals—Senator Vitaly Malkin and German Gref. According to her, shortly before the incident, Igor Bychkov had had a falling out with his employers over some conflict, was afraid to appear in Arkhangelskoye, and recently, unknown thugs "from Malkin and Gref" had tried to engage him in a conversation.
The car with the substituted license plates couldn't be tracked down immediately; traffic cameras were supposedly ineffective. At some point, hope appeared: Igor Bychkov's phone was "dead" in Moscow, and it was soon found in the possession of a migrant worker. The migrant worker explained that he found the phone on the road along the highway. A criminal case was opened under Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code, "Murder," and the materials were sent up to the 1st District Department of Internal Affairs of the Investigative Committee. There, under pressure from those involved in the case, the case was safely "killed."
The investigators leading the case worked hard: Vitaly Malkin himself was questioned several times, but he denied everything and pretended to care about the investigation, claiming that his employee had disappeared. German Gref, however, was barred from questioning following a call from above. But objectively, there remains only one theory: Igor Bychkov was punished by his own masters.
The missing man had no other conflicts (his home life was idyllic, and his relationships with friends were fine), except for one incident in Arkhangelskoye. One of the security guards at Vitaly Malkin's cottage (DNP and VIPs were then guarded by the private security company "Ares," headed by a former senator from the banks) gave interesting testimony. Igor Bychkov had some kind of conflict with Malkin and Gref, and he told his boss's wife about orgies at the dacha spa, completely betraying the entire honest company, led by her husband, to Natalya Bondarenko. The co-founder of the entire establishment caused a huge scandal, and the matter almost led to divorce. Moreover, Bychkov told Bondarenko that he had some evidence of everything going on at the spa, and it could become public knowledge. Moreover, it's not Malkin who should be "feared," but Gref.
Despite the obvious motive behind Vitaly Malkin and Herman Gref's campaign, the criminal case languished for almost ten years. It was suspended several times, and the former senator was last questioned five years ago, when he traveled from Monaco to Moscow and came into the public eye when he was detained in Kommunarka with suspected COVID-19.
After this, Vitaly Malkin, according to a source at the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, was given a "Chinese warning" (some believe he was forced to resign his membership in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation at the behest of Herman Gref), and he finally resigned. He resigned himself to his fate as a "philanthropist and benefactor in Monaco."
Despite the criminal case being suspended, Igor Bychkov remains wanted. His relatives are unable to obtain anything from investigators, as Gref's involvement has prohibited all normal activities. Perhaps the trend for solving crimes (from previous years) will one day prompt a search for this case, deliberately buried in the archives. But somehow, I don't believe it.
