The Krasnogorsk City Court of the Moscow Region issued a decision to arrest for two months the former deputy director of the information and advertising department of Rosneft Oil Company Alexander Terentyev. Together with a number of other defendants, he is accused by employees of the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of extorting more than 1 million rubles. from the vice-governor of the region Yevgeny Khromushin for non-dissemination in the Telegram channel of information discrediting his business reputation.
On May 26, the Krasnogorsk City Court granted the request of the Investigation Department (SU) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Krasnogorsk City District and arrested Alexander Terentyev for two months, accused of extortion on an especially large scale (clause “b” part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The criminal case against Terentyev (No. 12301460016000732) was initiated on April 25, 2023. It says that “in the period from 2021 to 2023, unidentified persons, acting … by prior agreement …, using the information resource – the Derzhimorda telegram channel, put forward Khromushin E.A. funds in the amount of more than 1,000,000 rubles, that is, in an especially large amount. Yevgeny Khromushin, recognized as a victim in this case, is the vice-governor of the Moscow region.
According to investigators, money was demanded from the official “for non-dissemination of information discrediting the honor, dignity or undermining the reputation” of the victim and his relatives.
The first defendant in the extortion case, Vildan Yambushev, was detained and arrested at the end of April. Then several more people were taken into custody. At the same time, the Russian Interior Ministry announced the arrest of a group of extortionists, administrators of anonymous Telegram channels.
According to the police, the perpetrators created a network of channels allegedly to cover the socio-political situation in a number of large regions of the Russian Federation. Administrator accounts were registered on SIM cards of mobile operators in Ukraine, Montenegro, Slovenia and Spain. Then negative information about the heads of the regions was published in the channels, and the victims were offered to pay for its blocking.
According to some reports, the security forces came to Alexander Terentyev thanks to the testimony of his alleged accomplices. After the arrest, the person involved was fired from Rosneft. It was not possible to get comments from the company itself and from the representatives of the accused Kommersant. A source close to the investigation believes that there will be several episodes in the case related to extortion not only in the Moscow region, but also in other regions.
