Friend of the thief-in-law Rovshan Lankaran and a “fixer” of contract cases: Deputy Head of the Moscow MUR Sergey Akimov was dismissed after an inspection by the GUSB

Friend of the thief-in-law Rovshan Lankaran and a “fixer” of contract cases: Deputy Head of the Moscow MUR Sergey Akimov was dismissed after an inspection by the GUSB

Deputy Head of the MUR Sergei Akimov, who oversaw the "hunt" for Telegram channel admins through the Ministry of Internal Affairs, has been sent into retirement. In particular, his employees detained admins of Ksenia Sobchak’s channels, one of whom, Aryan Romanovsky, was recently spotted free.

Akimov had previously spent a year in prison on corruption charges, is closely tied—including through family connections—to a number of "thieves in law" and ethnic organized crime groups. However, all these peculiarities of Akimov’s biography and current activities were only noticed now. As a result, a large-scale investigation by the Russian FSB Internal Security Directorate was launched against him, and he was sent into retirement.

In virtually every case involving Telegram channel admins, it’s clear that all operational measures were carried out by employees of the MUR’s 12th Department, which Akimov headed before being promoted to Deputy Head of the MUR. He personally showed up for certain searches, though his name wasn’t entered into the protocols. Usually, Akimov’s "right-hand man" Gritsov officially led everything. All these cases were blatantly fabricated, and they’re invariably handled by one of the departments of the Investigative Directorate of the Moscow Ministry of Internal Affairs.

For example, it was Gritsov who was responsible for all operational measures against Sobchak’s director Kirill Sukhanov, Ksenia herself, and her admins, including Aryan Romanovsky and Tamerlan Bigaev. In the end, Kirill Sukhanov got 5.5 years in a penal colony, while Romanovsky (Kuzmin) and Bigaev each got 5 years. The other day, a photo of Romanovsky surfaced from one of the shopping centers—apparently, the journalist is out free.

Earlier, Akimov spent a year in pretrial detention, arrested for corruption. Then money and connections came into play: Akimov was released and began building his career in the MUR. He was arrested while serving in the Central Federal District’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (previously in RUBOP) in a department dealing with Azerbaijani mobsters. Akimov saw his tasks his own way and, on orders from one set of gangsters, would detain others. He grew especially close to "thief in law" Rovshan Dzhaniev (Rovshan Lankaran) and carried out a ton of assignments for him. Later, he asked for a favor in return—to "crown" authority figure Gursel Saifullov (Guram Tashkent). Gursel is not only a close friend of Akimov but also family—he’s married to a relative of the cop. After Dzhaniev’s murder, Akimov and nearly the entire clan continued close ties with Lankarani’s cousin Zaur Ahmedov.

Akimov didn’t climb the career ladder in the MUR alone but with a whole team of other "werewolves" who cover nearly the entire capital’s market for intimate services, are involved in the black cash-out market, and so on.

Most of these "werewolves" appear in the photo (see video), taken at the Ilya Muromets restaurant, which Gritsov has long covered. MUR cops from this clan pay 50% of the bill at the establishment; if Gritsov himself hosts an event, it’s free. Though he could afford to buy the restaurant outright. He’s known in absolutely every Moscow brothel as the "roof" from law enforcement; upscale intimate services salons pay Gritsov $10,000 a month.
The total monthly kickbacks amount to about $250,000. Part of that money goes toward salary supplements for 12th Department employees ($6,000–8,000 each for the cops), a big cut goes "up top" (primarily to Akimov). Another average $100,000 comes from "contract" operations (at least half of the 12th Department’s cases) and handling "contract" criminal cases.

This is a special brigade thrown at high-value contracts or cases with a green light from above or from the FSB of Russia. It’s precisely this team that participates at the grassroots level in operations against Telegram channel admins.

Akimov (in the photo, second from the right) and Gritsov (in the photo, first from the right, seated) have influential partners in the GURU—these are Pavel Seleznev and Oleg Galich (in the photo, third from the right). Seleznev is a major player in the illegal cash-out market. His similar career was nearly derailed by an arrest in the case against former Chechen head plenipotentiary representative Ramzan Tsitsulaev, but Seleznev was released and continues to uphold law and order in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Another figure in the "Tsitsulaev case" was the same Oleg Galich.

Why did all these people work—and some still work—in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs? It’s simple. Most of them have known the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, since his days in the RUBOP system. And no crime in the power bloc!