The creator of Shaltai-Boltai (Humpty Dumpty) website, which containted the correspondence of officials, journalist Vladimir Anikeev, better known in some circles as Lewis, was arrested on arrival from Ukraine, where he is supposed to have been involved in the publishing on a local site of presidential aide Vladislav Surkov's correspondence. In his testimony, Lewis said about the employee of the Information Security Center, Mikhailov.

As a source familiar with the situation told Rosbalt, Vladimir Anikeev was detained by the FSB officers at the end of October 2016, when he arrived in St. Petersburg from Ukraine. "The operation was the result of a long work. There was a complicated operative combination with the aim to lure Lewis from Ukraine, which he didn't indend to leave," said the source to the news agency. Anikeev was taken to Moscow, where the Investigation department of the FSB charged him under Article 272 of the Criminal Code (Illegal access to computer information).

First and foremost the counterintelligence was interested in the situation with the "leakage" of Vladislav Surkov's correspondence: by the time it was known that it was in the hands of the Shaltai-Boltai's team. Since it was e-mail with from the .gov domain, the situation caused great concern in theFSO. As a result of this, the correspondence was published on the website of a Ukrainian association of hackers called Cyber-Junta. In reality, it is suspected that Anikeev was involved in that affair. He'd been constantly visiting this country, his girlfriend lived there, and, according to available data, he was not going to return to Russia. Lewis was also asked about other officials' correspondence, which already appeared on the Shaltai-Boltai website.

"Anikeev immediately began to cooperate with the investigation and provide detailed evidence, which repeatedly mentioned Mikhailov as being associated with the Shaltai-Boltai's team," said the source of Rosbalt. And in December 2016, Mikhailov and his "right hand," another official of the Information Security Center, Dmitry Dokuchaev, were arrested. The Court took a decision on their arrest. Another ISC official was also detained, but after questioning, no preventive measures involving deprivation of liberty were applied to him.

 According to the version of the agency's source, the situation developed as follows. At the beginning of 2016, the department headed by Mikhailov received an order to "work" with Shaltai-Boltai's website, which published the correspondence of civil servants. The immediate executor was Dokuchaev. Officers of the ISC were able to find out the team of Shaltai-Boltai, which participants nicknamed themselves after Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland": Alice, the March Hare, etc. The website creator and organizer, Anikeev, was nicknamed Lewis. In the summer there were searching raids in St. Petersburg, although formally for other reasons.

According to the Rosbalt's source, just after the summer attack the team of Shaltai-Boltai appeared to have the owner, or, to be exact, the curator. According to the source, it could be Sergey Mikhailov. As the result, the working methods of the Lewis's team also changed, just as the objects whose correspondence was being published for public access. Previously, Lewis's people figured out objects in places where mobile phone was used. They were given access to the phone contents by means of a false cell (when it came to mobile internet) or using a false-Wi-FI (if the person was connected to Wi-FI). Then the downloaded content was sent to member of the Lewis's team, residing in Estonia. He analyzed to to select what's to be put in the open access and what's to be sold for Bitcoins. The whole financial part of the Shaltai-Boltai involved a few people living in Thailand. These Bitcoins were cashed in Ukraine. Occasionally the Lewis published emails previously stolen by other hackers.

After the summer, Shaltai-Boltai began to work exclusively with the content given to it by the curator. Earlier, it published correspondence of rather an "entertaining" character, as well as officials whose "secrets" would do no special harm; but later it switched to civil servants' email that contained information that could bring serious trouble. When it became known that Surkov's correspondence "leaked" to Ukraine, it broke the camel's back. "Mikhailov's a magnificent expert. Best in his business. One can say that the ISC is Mikhailov.. But he crossed all possible borders," told a source of Rosbalt.