A former employee of the counterintelligence department of the FSB department for the Perm Territory, Grigory Tsaregorodtsev, asked to be released from the pre-trial detention center on bail or under house arrest . The former counterintelligence officer, who was burned by bribes from hackers, partially admitted guilt and agreed to reclassify the article to a less severe one. Initially, Tsaregorodtsev was charged under Part 6 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – receiving a bribe on an especially large scale.
However, the prosecutor’s office submitted a conclusion to the court mentioning Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – fraud on an especially large scale.
Tsaregorodtsev insists that he feels bad in the pre-trial detention center and cannot heal an old fracture. In addition, he needs medical advice on a number of other issues.
Moreover, as collateral, the former FSB major offers not money but a quarter share in an apartment worth 4.6 million rubles , in which his mother and sister are also registered. The court has not yet made a decision on this petition.
The security officer is accused of receiving at least 160 million rubles in bribes from two Perm entrepreneurs from 2016 to 2022. The last sum turned out to be the largest – for 100 million, Tsaregorodtsev offered to assist in closing the criminal case against them.
The entrepreneurs were part of a larger group of cybercriminals who operated foreign bank accounts. Their case is being considered separately by the capital’s Savyolovsky Court.
In Perm they began to consider the case of an ex-FSB employee about a bribe of 160 million
February 6, 2024, 03:31
Former intelligence officer Grigory Tsaregorodtsev is accused of receiving a bribe from “Russian hackers.”
On February 6, the Perm Military Garrison Court began to consider the criminal case for the third time against ex-employee of the FSB Directorate for the Perm Territory Grigory Tsaregorodtsev . Initially, it was publicly known that he was accused of a bribe of 100 million rubles received at the end of January 2022 from Perm businessmen Alexander Kovalev and Vladislav Gilev . They were detained immediately after this in the case of “Russian hackers.” Tsaregorodtsev, according to investigators, promised them to “resolve the issue” of terminating the criminal case against them. It turned out that Tsaregorodtsev received about 160 million rubles in total.
The first hearing in the case was scheduled for December 19, 2023, but it was not considered at the request of the defense. The next time the case was postponed on January 25 – due to Tsaregorodtsev’s lack of a lawyer. Now the accused has two lawyers: Dmitry Roshchin (Moscow) and Svetlana Kropotina (Perm).
According to Properm.ru journalist from the courtroom, state prosecutor Alexander Sladkov , the accused and his lawyers asked the court to allow journalists only to announce the indictment and sentence. This is connected with official and family secrets, as well as state secrets. The court decided that journalists would be removed during the investigation of documents intended for official use, as well as other secret data.
The accused himself asked for a ban on photographs; the court partially granted this request, allowing filming only from the back, since Tsaregorodtsev was previously a counterintelligence officer.
The defense of the accused asked the court to change the preventive measure to a more lenient one, to release Tsaregorodtsev from the pre-trial detention center, since he needs treatment and consultation with doctors. The defendant said that since last year he has also been unable to heal a fracture and needs medical consultation, which he was not provided with in the pre-trial detention center.
Among the options that lawyers offer are house arrest or bail. The collateral is not money, but a ¼ share in an apartment worth 4.6 million rubles. The home belongs to the accused, mother and sister.
The defense claims that Tsaregorodtsev has already been fired from service, so he will not be able to influence the witnesses in the case. He partially admitted his guilt and agreed with a more lenient classification of the crime under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – fraud on an especially large scale.
Closing indictment
The state prosecutor explained that Tsaregorodtsev’s service record was negative. In total, the accused, according to the investigation, received 160 million rubles for the period from 2016 to 2022 for illegal inaction in his service. Entrepreneurs Alexander Kovalev , as well as Vladislav Gilev , gave him money; they are planned to be interrogated via video conferencing from Moscow. Since the court ordered the materials to be read out and witnesses to be questioned behind closed doors, the media will not be allowed in after lunch.
The accused was surprised by State Prosecutor Alexander Sladkov ’s remark about his job description. He will ask for clarification of this information, since he had no complaints, received awards and was promoted until the moment of his arrest. Tsaregorodtsev said that he sees his actions not as a bribe, but as fraud. He promised to explain this to the court in more detail during interrogation. As he said today, he was given money for helping to solve problems on the part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and not extraditing him to a foreign state for what he had done, which, in principle, due to his official duties, he could not do: “ People came up with something in their heads and thought it was so, but this was not within my authority and I did not intend to do so. There is still no verdict against them; the article under which they are accused is within the competence of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and not the FSB .”
Kovalev and Gilev were detained after receiving the last part of the money of 100 million rubles two weeks before the arrest, but they did not receive any help from Tsaregorodtsev, he simply misled them, says lawyer Dmitry Roshchin.
State prosecutor Alexander Sladkov, after the lawyers’ words, clarified that the accused had to identify crimes and stop them. Including stopping the activities of hackers and transferring data about them to the police. Contrary to this, Tsaregorodtsev himself committed a crime.
How did the communication between the accused and the hackers begin?
In 2016, Tsaregorodtsev learned about a group of hackers, Sladkov, deputy military prosecutor of the Perm Territory, said in his speech. Then the accused decided that he could get money from them for their patronage. He told Kovalev that he knew about their crimes and offered to give a bribe. The latter agreed.
They did not agree on the final amount, but Kovalev had to pay the first 30 million by the end of 2017. Kovalev began to give money – amounts from 12 to 30 million rubles, and in total – 60 million rubles – he transferred from 2017 to 2022. On the eve of the arrest of the hackers, Tsaregorodtsev demanded 100 million rubles from them for “resolving issues.” Late in the evening of January 23, 2022, the defendant received this money and, according to investigators, took the suitcase with the money home in Kovalev’s car.
What happened before?
The detention of Tsaregorodtsev for a bribe of 100 million rubles became known in September last year. He was arrested on April 25 in Perm and was charged with receiving a bribe on an especially large scale. On the same day, and he was interrogated as a defendant, he did not admit his guilt, but later confirmed that he received money from his acquaintances, persons involved in the so-called “Russian hackers” case. Subsequently, he was moved to a pre-trial detention center in Moscow, and a preventive measure was chosen for him there.
A criminal case against “Russian hackers” was opened in January 2022; in February, federal media reported that the Tverskoy Court of Moscow sent the general director of the Saratovfilm film company Denis Pachevsky , entrepreneur Kovalev, Transtechcom employee Artem Bystrykh , co-owner of the Perm Get -no” Artem Zaitsev , as well as two unemployed from Perm – Gilev and Yaroslav Solovyov . They are accused of illegally taking money from foreign bank accounts.
All of them were charged under Part 2 of Art. 187 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal use of computer programs intended for receiving, issuing, transferring funds, committed by a group of persons). It is known that 23 gold bars, money in various currencies and other valuables were seized from them during the arrest. In the spring of 2023, they told the security forces that they had given money to Tsaregorodtsev before his arrest.
Now the case of “Russian hackers” is being considered by the Savyolovsky Court in Moscow, several defendants in the case still remain in pre-trial detention, and for some the preventive measure has been changed to a more lenient one
