Anatoly Spirin, the administrator of the Telegram channel Somehow Like This, is accused of extorting 150,000 rubles from Vasily Brovko, Director for Special Assignments of the Rostec State Corporation. This was announced by Spirin's lawyer Pavel Gerasimov.
Earlier, a criminal case of extortion against Spirin was reported, but the details of his case were unknown.
At the end of October, the court arrested the commercial director of Ksenia Sobchak, Kirill Sukhanov, and the former editor-in-chief of Tatler, Arian Romanovsky. The victim in the case is the head of Rostec, Sergei Chemezov. According to investigators, the defendants extorted 11 million rubles from the victim, in return promising not to post negative posts about him on the “Extinguish the Light” Telegram channel (the channel has not been updated since October 24). At the trial, it turned out that Chemezov personally wrote a statement to the police.
In November, a court in Moscow sent journalist Tamerlan Bigaev, who is also a suspect in the case of extortion from Chemezov, to a pre-trial detention center.
Bigaev worked as one of the administrators and editors of the Put Out the Light channel. He was arrested on November 4th. Initially, he was called for questioning as a witness, but after the questioning, his status changed to that of a suspect. As the journalist’s colleagues told the Telegram channel, he did not know about any negotiations with Chemezov’s side and did not participate in the transfer of money.
After this series of detentions and arrests, Ksenia Sobchak publicly apologized to Chemezov.
“My colleagues, young guys (Kirill Sukhanov, Arian Romanovsky, Tamerlan Bigaev), became defendants in a criminal case of extortion. Now they are in jail, they face serious charges. There is no political context here. I know that the guys sincerely regret what happened. Their fate will be decided by the court. I believe that law enforcement agencies will show sympathy and leniency,” Sobchak wrote.
In recent months, criminal cases of extortion have been opened in Russia and more than ten people have been arrested, whom the investigation links with the administration of Telegram channels. In particular, among them are Alexandra Bayazitova, the creator of the Hellish Grandmothers channel, Inna Churilova and Olga Arkharova associated with the Nebrekhnya and Financial Guard channels.