Media managers Alexander Gusov, Eduard Shchurenkov and IT specialist Anton Safonov extorted money from them, as well as Andrei Ryumin and TV presenter Tina Kandelaki for non-proliferation of defamatory information.
Kommersant has learned that a criminal case of extorting more than 23.5 million rubles from Rostec top manager Vasily Brovko, Rosseti CEO Andrei Ryumin and Yota founder Albert Avdolyan has reached the court. The journalist Eduard Shchurenkov, who is on trial, fully admitted guilt, while his alleged accomplice, the IT businessman Anton Safonov, categorically denied the charge. The latter’s defense claimed falsification of the indictment, the amount of which almost tripled during the investigation.
According to Kommersant, the Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office recently approved the indictment in the criminal case against the CEO of Digital Soft and Digital Reputation, Anton Safonov, and journalist Eduard Shchurenkov. Both of them were charged with extortion on a particularly large scale as part of an organized group (part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, 7 to 15 years in prison).
Law enforcers charge Mr. Safonov with three criminal episodes. Thus, according to the case materials, together with his wanted business partner, co-founder of the company “Digital Soft” and ex-general director of the film studio “Lenfilm” Fedor Shcherbakov, he is accused of organizing the extortion of 2.2 million rubles in 2022. from Rostec Director for Special Assignments Vasily Brovko for the removal of eight posts and further non-posting for three months of inaccurate and discrediting information about the top manager and his wife Tina Kandelaki in the Telegram channel “Nebrekhnya”. The second episode concerns the publication in the same year of five posts also about Mr. Brovko in the Telegram channel “Provisional Government” and the extortion of 1 million 40 thousand rubles from him for their removal and the installation of a “block on negativity.
Finally, the third episode relates to the publication in 2021 in “Kremlin Mamkoved” and 11 other various Telegram channels with false and discrediting information about the head of Rosseti Andrey Ryumin and his company. The latter was demanded to pay 8.7 million rubles for the removal of the posts. Mr. Safonov was accused of this episode together with Eduard Shchurenkov, the author of publications about Rosseti. The latter, in addition, was accused of involvement in extorting 11.5 million rubles from billionaire Albert Avdolyan, the founder of telecom operator Yota, in 2020 for not placing negative publications in the newspaper Vek and Telegram channel Novy Vek.
It is worth noting that media manager Stanislav Deineko, who was also on trial in the criminal case and, according to the investigation, was part of the organized group, as well as Alexander Gusov, the owner of the newspaper Vek and Telegram channel Novy Vek, initially denied guilt.
Later they agreed to the charges, having entered into pre-trial cooperation agreements with the prosecutor’s office and testified against the other defendants. Now they can expect a much lighter punishment. Their cases were separated into separate proceedings and sent to Moscow district courts, which have not yet begun their consideration. At present, the defendants are on their own recognizance.
Another defendant in the investigation, journalist Dmitry Zhmutsky, who managed to evade the investigation, was arrested in absentia.
Eduard Shchurenkov, who was charged later than the others – in June 2024, was not taken into custody. As for Anton Safonov, he is the only one of all those who since his arrest (October 23, 2023) is still in custody. He categorically denies his guilt.
In turn, Mr. Safonov’s defense claims that, “having failed to collect evidence of his guilt,” the investigation, “in order to obtain approval of the indictment, went for official forgery.” In a complaint (available at Kommersant’s disposal) filed by the businessman’s lawyer Vladimir Slashchev and recently sent to Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, Moscow Prosecutor Igor Zhuk and the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin, he points out that everything started back on October 10, 2024, when his client was indicted in the final version of the indictment. On that day, the investigator offered the arrested person to read and sign two completely identical rulings on being brought as an accused on 41 sheets, explaining it by “official necessity.”
After that, within half a year, the Moscow City Court twice extended the term of arrest for Mr. Safonov within the framework of this charge.
When on April 11 the Moscow prosecutor’s office approved the indictment in the case, it turned out, the lawyer says in his complaint, that it was already 142 pages long and contained a completely different description of the crimes.
“Mr. Safonov did not testify on the merits of this charge and did not defend himself against this charge,” the defense complaint says. As Mr. Slashchev noted, in the new charge the investigation still assigned Anton Safonov, together with Fedor Shcherbakov, the role of organizers of extortion, but at the same time “added a number of facts and circumstances that had not previously appeared in the criminal case.
“Thus, for the past six months Safonov was deprived of the opportunity to know what he was accused of and to defend himself against the new charge,” said the lawyer, who claimed a gross violation of the right to defense. He claims that “the facts of falsification and removal of the former charges from the case are visible to the naked eye,” as the investigators have corrected the time on a number of protocols of investigative actions. At the same time, according to Mr. Slashchev, “similar signs of prosecution forgery” are seen in the story of the second defendant – Eduard Shchurenkov. “If the documents are to be believed, he familiarized himself with the new 80-page indictment in just three minutes, after which he pleaded guilty in full,” the lawyer said.
He believes that the actions of the investigators of the investigators of the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow contain signs of abuse of power (part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Lawyer Slashchev asks the prosecutor’s office to send the materials to the investigative authorities to decide the question of bringing the officials of the GSU to criminal responsibility, as well as to withdraw Mr. Safonov’s case from the Khamovnichesky court of Moscow in order to re-prosecute the defendant, “to give him an opportunity to understand and collect evidence of innocence.”
Mr. Safonov himself repeatedly stated during the extension of his arrest that there was no sense for him to extort 12 million rubles, as the two IT-companies created by him 15 years ago brought him “sufficient income”, and therefore “one should be a completely crazy person to demand from someone an amount less than my official salary”.
It is interesting that the defense of the “telegrammers” who are on trial in other cases – retired FSB colonel Mikhail Polyakov, interpreter Denis Savinsky and entrepreneur Alexander Sanin – also claims about “forgery of charges”. They are accused of extorting 42.5 million rubles from one of the largest Russian IT companies, Lanit. Their case, like Mr. Safonov’s, was also handled by the 8th Department of the Investigative Unit of the Main Department of the Russian Interior Ministry.
As Kommersant has learned, in this case, while familiarizing themselves with the 159 volumes, the defendants’ lawyers, instead of the 14-page final charge, found a new document on 75 pages, which they claim was also not presented to the persons under investigation.
“At the same time, almost a year later it turned out that the old rulings on bringing the defendants as accused were canceled as early as July 3, 2024, of which the defense was not notified,” Anastasia Shelyashkova, a lawyer for Mr. Sanin, told Kommersant. She said that she had filed the relevant complaints and statements with the competent authorities, but declined to comment further.