Three FSB officers accused of issuing state secrets for $ 10 million

Cases of the FSB officers accused of treason reached the court.
05.10.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
As it became known to “Kommersant”, the Moscow District Military Court (MOVS) will consider in a closed-door mode two criminal cases related to the largest espionage scandal of recent years. According to the prosecution, the head of the department of operational management of the Information Security Center (CIB), FSB Colonel Sergei Mikhailov and three of his accomplices for $ 10 million revealed to the FBI methods and methods of conducting operational investigative activities in the case of the founder and general director of the Chronopay processing company Pavel Vrublevsky, who in the USA is called cybercriminal number one. Information on CDs was transmitted to FBI-related businessmen at international cybersecurity conferences. For her accused allegedly promised $ 10 million

According to Kommersant, the indictments were approved by the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office (GVP) on September 26 of this year, after which the criminal cases were forwarded for consideration to the MOVS. First, the head of the CIB’s operational management department, Sergei Mikhailov, and a former employee of Kaspersky Lab, Ruslan Stoyanov, who flatly deny blame for treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code), will appear before the court. Afterwards, the case will be considered by the FSB major Dmitry Dokuchaev, a subordinate colonel Mikhailov, who worked until 2006 in the bureau of special technical events of the Moscow police department and businessman Georgi Fomchenkov, who admitted his guilt and concluded pre-trial agreements with the GVP. Before getting the minimum time in a special order, the gentlemen Dokuchaev and Fomchenkov have to act as witnesses for the prosecution in the first trial, which will be held in the usual form of legal proceedings.

The investigative department of the FSB opened a criminal case against the accused Mikhailov, Dokuchaev, Stoyanov and Fomchenkov on December 6, 2016. At first, in the workplace, counterintelligence officers detained the CIB officers, and then the merchants. All four were accused of committing a crime under Art. 275 of the Criminal Code, and sent Lefortovo district court in the same insulator, which are still. The operation to detain the alleged "moles" was the result of a development that lasted more than a year.

According to investigators, the FSB Colonel Sergei Mikhailov in 2011, through civilian intermediaries, gave FBI officers information on operational investigations in the case of the founder and general director of the Chronopay processing company Pavel Wroblewski, who in the US is called the number one cybercriminal in the world.

Colonel Mikhailov and his subordinate obtained these data by participating in the operational development of Mr. Wroblewski, who was suspected of organizing a DDoS attack on the Assist payment system in July 2010, due to which citizens could not buy Aeroflot e-tickets for several days. In 2013, the Tushinsky District Court of Moscow, recognizing Mr Vrublevsky guilty of committing a crime under Art. 272 of the Criminal Code (unauthorized access to computer information), sentenced him to two and a half years in prison.

According to the investigators, collecting information on the operational and investigative activities relating to the state secret, Colonel Mikhailov recorded them on a compact disc, which he handed over to Major Dokuchaev, and the one to Kaspersky Lab employee Ruslan Stoyanov. The latter flew in 2011 to an international conference on cybersecurity in New Denver (Canada). There, as follows from the materials of the criminal case, Mr. Stoyanov handed over a CD to a certain Kimberly Zents, an employee of the American company I-Defense, engaged in information protection and affiliated, according to the FSB, with the FBI. According to a similar scheme, the investigation considers that entrepreneur Georgy Fomchenkov, who went with a CD to the USA, acted.

At the initial stage of the investigation, it was believed that the persons involved in the criminal case should have received $ 10 million for the information transferred, but this figure was not mentioned in the final version of the prosecution. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the investigation was unable to establish the exact amount of the promised remuneration promised.

It is noteworthy that Dmitry Dokuchaev is still being sought by the FBI, who accuses him of organizing a hacker attack on postal services, as well as on US government websites in 2015. In addition, he is charged with a cyber attack on the servers of the National Committee of the US Democratic Party and the hacking of electoral systems in Illinois and Arizona in 2016. For this, Mr. Dokuchaev was sentenced in absentia to 146 years in prison.

According to the lawyer Mr. Mikhailov Ruslan Golenkov, they hope for a fair consideration of the case in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where they intend to seek a full acquittal of the colonel. At the same time, the lawyer categorically refused to comment on the criminal case, citing a non-disclosure subscription.

In turn, Mr. Vrublevsky, in a conversation with Kommersant, called Colonel Mikhailov a “traitor,” saying that he had suggested that he go to the US embassy in order to “enlist”. “It is very interesting to me how the process over him will end,” Mr Vrublevsky added.

Crime

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