The suicide of the former deputy head of the anti-corruption chief of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Boris Kolesnikov, accused of organizing a criminal community, abuse of power and provoking a bribe, became the most high-profile such incident in recent years. The Kolesnikov case, the investigation of which may be terminated due to his death, will become one of the biggest mysteries of recent years for Russian criminology.

Internal wars

For the first time, people started talking about the case of employees of the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption (GUEBiPK) of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the winter of 2014, after the FSB officers carried out an investigation in the department and the detention of a number of officers from the main department. The detention of anti-corruption service employees Ivan Kosourov and Alexei Bodnar following a search immediately turned into a scandal: the court, with the support of the prosecutor's office, first arrested them. However, the situation soon changed: Kosourov and Bodnar were.

The arrested policemen were charged with provoking a bribe and exceeding their official powers. As Kommersant reported, employees of the anti-corruption headquarters tried to “catch in the act” Igor Demin, deputy head of one of the departments of the internal security department (USB) of the FSB of Russia. Operational development regarding Demin has been carried out since the fall of 2013. According to the investigation, the operatives planned, through intermediaries, posing as businessmen, to offer an FSB officer to take their business “under the roof” for a fee of 10 thousand dollars a month.

A few days after the first arrest, on February 21, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree from the post of Lieutenant General Denis Sugrobov, head of the GUEBiPK. At the same time, some sources report that Sugrobov himself asked to resign on February 17. Sugrobov’s dismissal was preceded by a serious crisis in the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as a result of which, for example, on February 17, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, head of the Investigation Department (SD) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Yuri Alekseev, was fired. The dismissal seemed all the more unexpected since Alekseev, shortly before the events, was expected to replace Alexander Bastrykin as head of the Investigative Committee. The details of the dismissal were not publicly announced, however, as the Rosbalt agency reported, citing internal sources, relations between the leadership of the GUEBiPK and the SD of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were extremely tense, and in fact, a kind of war was going on within the department: the investigative department refused to initiate cases based on the materials of the anti-corruption department, and employees of both departments were actively looking for dirt on their colleagues.

Both structures suffered in this war. On February 25, the Investigative Committee detained the deputy head of the GUEBiPK, Major General Boris Kolesnikov. He was charged with organizing a criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) from his subordinates, organizing provocation of a bribe and several episodes of abuse of power (Part 3 of Article 33, Article 304, paragraph “c” of Part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). While in custody, Kolesnikov received head injuries twice. The disgraced general himself explained them at meetings with lawyers as his own carelessness, but there are versions that physical force could have been used against him. At the same time, the official representative of the Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, stated after Kolesnikov’s suicide that the defendant had tried to commit suicide before (according to some reports, there were two unsuccessful suicide attempts - approx. "Tapes.ru").

On May 8, in the case of Kolesnikov and his former boss Denis Sugrobov, who was previously involved in the case as a witness. The reason for the arrest was Sugrobov’s failure to appear for questioning. The investigation suspects Sugrobov of committing at least 10 serious crimes against the state and justice “in order to increase the quantitative indicators of his work.” The defense asked to release Sugrobov on bail in the amount of five million rubles.

Sugrobov himself denied his guilt: “As the head of the main department, I was not involved in operational work. How could I attract operatives to a criminal group? I don’t even know the essence of the developments that are being charged to me and my subordinates,” he said.

The suspect also refuted the investigators' arguments that he intended to escape and stated that he was ready to give full and exhaustive testimony to the investigation. “I don’t understand why I haven’t been questioned yet. It seems to me that this was done artificially to say that I was supposedly hiding,” he said.

In total, 16 GUEBiPK employees of various ranks were in custody in the Kolesnikov case.

Subtle edges of provocation

There is no doubt that, despite the presence of a similar nature, the main source of trouble for the GUEBiPK employees was their clash with a representative of the FSB, and the key question is whether this was a real operational development or a provocation with the aim of fabricating a case.

The problem is that the line between these two situations is almost invisible. Resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated July 9, 2013 No. 24
“On judicial practice in cases of bribery and other corruption crimes” directly states that liability under Article 304 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation occurs “only in the case of an attempt to transfer money, securities, other property or provide services of a property nature was carried out for the purpose of artificially generating evidence of a crime or blackmail, and an official or person performing managerial functions in a commercial or other organization did not, with the knowledge of the perpetrator, commit actions indicating his consent to accept a bribe or the subject of commercial bribery, or refused to accept them.”

At the same time, paragraph 34 of this resolution directly indicates that the inciting actions of law enforcement officers under circumstances indicating that without their intervention the provoked official would not have taken a bribe are a violation of the law, and in this case there is no liability.

If this provision is applied in full, then the natural consequence should be the termination of all criminal cases initiated based on the materials of the GUEBiPK, with the rehabilitation of persons who came under investigation and trial on charges of bribery after the operational developments of the anti-corruption department. However, this has not happened yet.

Translating the aforementioned resolution from legal language into Russian: in order to find law enforcement officers guilty of incitement, it is necessary that the object of this incitement simply refuse to accept a bribe.

In the case of the FSB officer, in the opinion of Kolesnikov, who committed suicide, “it is impossible to impute provocation of a bribe in a situation where Demin never refused to receive funds.” As follows from the case materials, the intermediary, on behalf of GUEBiPK employees, met with the FSB officer four times, offering him a bribe.

These words are difficult to verify, especially since they are countered by the same words that employees of the FSB Internal Security Service began their own operational development against employees of the GUEBiPK Ministry of Internal Affairs. An open trial could clarify the situation, but General Kolesnikov, who jumped out of the window, will no longer testify, and the case may be terminated without any trial.

Most likely, this means that the “internal wars” of the Russian special services will continue, at least until the current legislation makes it practically impossible to distinguish an operational development from a provocation. The extent to which this mechanism makes it possible to fight corruption or, on the contrary, contributes to its prosperity in the highest echelons of the intelligence services is a topic for a separate discussion.

The Moscow City Court sentenced the former head of the anti-corruption department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Denis Sugrobov to 22 years in prison for creating a criminal community and 14 counts of abuse of power. His subordinates received from four to 20 years in a maximum security colony

Denis Sugrobov (right) (Photo: Mikhail Pochuev / TASS)

The Moscow City Court on Thursday, April 27, announced the verdict of Lieutenant General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Denis Sugrobov and his subordinates from the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption (GUEBiPK) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Sugrobov was found guilty on 14 counts, received 22 years in a maximum security colony and was stripped of his title. He listened to the verdict with a smile. His subordinates received from four to 20 years in a maximum security colony. The deceased deputy of Sugrobov, Boris Kolesnikov, was found guilty and released from punishment in connection with his death, judge Elena Guchenkova ruled. During the debate, the prosecutor received 22 years in prison, and for his subordinates - from five years to 21 years in prison.

According to investigators, a criminal community under the leadership of Sugrobov operated in the anti-corruption department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for several years. The officers who were part of it systematically exceeded their authority, began to falsify operational materials on high-ranking officials and businessmen, and en masse provoked them to commit crimes. The state prosecution came to the conclusion that there was no profit motive in the officers’ actions: by sending agents provocateurs to their victims, the Ministry of Internal Affairs officers sought career advancement and awards.

The FSB has been illegally wiretapping employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs since 2010, and the purpose of the intelligence service was to “eliminate competition in the fight against corruption,” lawyer Eduard Isetsky told reporters after the trial: “Now there is one agency that determines what is corruption and what is not. And once a quarter it issues media reports on the governor.” An appeal against the verdict was prepared in advance and will be filed tomorrow.

Demonstration of capabilities

A criminal case against employees of the Anti-Corruption Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was opened in February 2014 after the officers took into account the deputy head of the 6th Internal Security Directorate (USB) of the FSB, Igor Demin. GUEBiPK officers sent their agent to Demin, former bailiff Ruslan Chukhlib, who introduced himself to the intelligence officer as an entrepreneur and was supposed to negotiate with him about patronage for $10 thousand a month, it follows from the case materials. According to the plan of the deputy head of department “B” of the main department, Alexei Bodnar, who oversaw the operation, immediately after transferring the money to the Sisters cafe on Pokrovka under the control of the police, Demin should have been detained. The outcome of the meeting was unexpected for the Ministry of Internal Affairs officers: Chukhlib was detained. As it turned out, Demin knew about the provocation that was being prepared against him, and his colleagues from the secret service, in turn, were developing the Guebovites.

After this, over the course of several months, more than a dozen GUEBiPK officers were arrested, including the deputy head of the department, Major General Boris Kolesnikov. Sugrobov was removed from office by presidential decree on February 21, 2014 and was initially a witness in the case, but was detained in May of the same year.

From the wiretapping materials that were in the case, it followed that there was a personal conflict between Sugrobov and Feoktistov. Novaya Gazeta named another participant in this conflict - Andrei Khorev, the former deputy head of the Department of Economic Security (DES) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who was later reformed into the GUEBiPK. Khorev was considered Feoktistov’s man, and Sugrobov, who was his subordinate in the DEB, had serious disagreements with him. Disagreements between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB were related, among other things, to a group involved in illegal cash transfers. Magin was detained by Sugrobov’s subordinates, while the FSB considered the fight against cashing out its sphere, in 2014, RBC’s interlocutors.

The FSB was irritated by the efficiency of the police structure and its irreconcilable position: there were no untouchables for the GUEBiPK, lawyers Eduard Isetsky and Pavel Lapshov, involved in the case, are convinced.

Closed court

Sugrobov, according to investigators, created on the basis of the central office “a criminal organization, stable, united and structured,” and its goal was serious crimes “against state power, the interests of the civil service and justice,” the case file says. Employees of the GUEBiPK created the “appearance of successful completion” of the tasks assigned to them and did this “out of selfish and other personal interest,” which boiled down to improving the performance of the head office and career advancement. Another interest of Sugrobov and his subordinates was related to “rights to the property of other persons” and benefits for enterprises and businessmen controlled by the officers, the investigation considered. However, this argument was not confirmed during the trial, during the debate between the parties in December last year.

The Investigative Committee counted 19 cases of abuse of power by officers of the headquarters; all of them in one way or another boiled down to provoking officials and businessmen to commit crimes. As a result, 29 people were illegally held criminally liable for bribery, commercial bribery and fraud, and 18 of them were kept in custody and under house arrest for a long time.

The trial, which lasted more than a year, took place behind closed doors. The defense insisted that the persecution of the police became possible due to a gap in the legislation, which allows almost any operational activity during which the development target commits a corrupt act to be considered a provocation, lawyer Isetsky told RBC. Another argument was that the criminal prosecution of a person and his taking into custody, which occurred due to abuse of power by a police officer, cannot be considered a serious consequence. Meanwhile, all defendants in the case are charged with paragraph “c” of Part 3 of Art. 286 of the Criminal Code, which deals with precisely such consequences. “The grave consequences must be, let’s say, irreparable,” lawyer Pavel Lapshov noted in a conversation with RBC.

Consequences for the system

Over the past three years, at least one and a half dozen officers of the GUEBiPK have been under investigation and trial. Two former operatives, whom the investigation considers members of Sugrobov’s criminal community, Alexey Bodnar and Maxim Nazarov, testified against their colleagues and were convicted in a special manner: Bodnar received 5.5 years in prison, Nazarov - five years. Separately, the cases of alleged participants in Sugrobov’s illegal developments are being investigated - operatives Pavel Dashin (he is wanted) and Gennady Sobolev (he was detained only in the fall of 2016 and is now under arrest in a pre-trial detention center). Cases continue to be filed against other GUEBiPK officers.

Since 2013, the number of GUEBiPK has decreased by a third - from 645 to 419 people; four departments of the main headquarters were disbanded, the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs told RBC. Now the department actually does not carry out any independent operational activities in the field of combating corruption, a source at the head office told RBC and was confirmed by lawyers Isetsky and Lapshov.​

General Kolesnikov biography: he was only 37 years old, he committed suicide on the third attempt. Kolesnikov’s father does not believe that his son could commit suicide himself, believing that he was driven to suicide. The family of Boris Kolesnikov, ex-general of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, can be called exemplary, and Kolesnikov himself went through life with success.

Boris Kolesnikov was born in the capital of Russia, Moscow, in 1977. He was brought up in an educated, intelligent family, his father is a professor at the Department of the Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, while still a child, he received the necessary knowledge and later made a good career. Boris Kolesnikov worked as deputy head of the GUEBiPK Ministry of Internal Affairs, and already in 2012 he was included in the Commission to ensure the implementation of measures to prevent bankruptcy of strategic enterprises and organizations of the defense industry.

The General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs could have continued to please his family with successes and achieve new heights, but everything happened differently. In 2014, he was detained on suspicion of extorting a bribe. From that moment on, everything went wrong. Kolesnikov became the main defendant in the case of organizing a criminal community by the former leadership of the GUEBiPK Ministry of Internal Affairs.

He ended up in a pre-trial detention center, completely depressed. Only the court, which suspected that the General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was really involved in the crimes, can decide whether Boris Kolesnikov is guilty or not, but relatives, of course, do not agree with this opinion. Meanwhile, during the investigation, while Kolesnikov was in the isolation ward, he twice tried to commit suicide: either out of shame for his actions in front of his loved ones, or unable to bear the burden of suspicion that shook his psyche.

The life of the General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was cut short on the afternoon of June 16. He was being interrogated when he asked to be taken, handcuffed, to the toilet. Once in the corridor, he knocked down the employee accompanying him and ran towards the balcony, Interfax reports. And then he simply jumped from the sixth floor of the Russian Investigative Committee building.

The terrible incident shocked Kolesnikov’s wife and father, who are horrified by the thought that their son and husband are no longer with them. And, of course, their main version of the cause of suicide was incitement to suicide. The father told the Kommersant publication that he considers the investigation to be “repressions aimed at discrediting the anti-corruption agency.”

Meanwhile, there is also a version that the tragic outcome was caused by mental disorders that occurred as a result of Kolesnikov’s traumatic brain injury. Lawyer Anastasia Stavitskaya told Kommersant that after the Interior Ministry general was injured, his intracranial pressure rose, which made him extremely depressed.

A loud scandal erupted in the Ministry of Internal Affairs after journalists received information that the death of ex-deputy head of the GUEBiPK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Boris Kolesnikov may have been staged, and he himself fell under the witness protection program, sources in law enforcement agencies told The Moscow Post correspondent.

Three years have passed since the death of Interior Ministry General Boris Kolesnikov. He was the deputy head of the GUEBiPK Denis Sugrobov, who is now in a pre-trial detention center.

Kolesnikov died after falling out of a window in the building of the Investigative Committee, where he was brought for interrogation. We are publishing our material from three years ago, in which police major Ivan Kosourov spoke about the death of Boris Kolesnikov. He was taken that day to the Investigative Committee for interrogation along with Kolesnikov. And he was the last one to speak with the deceased general.

The GUEBiPK officers under investigation told PASMI about the exertion of powerful psychological pressure, as well as the use of torture. In one of the materials we promised to talk about the meeting of the deputy head of Directorate “B” of the GUEBiPK, Major Ivan Kosourov, with General Boris Kolesnikov. Before the last interrogation, Boris Kolesnikov was taken to the Investigative Committee building in the same paddy wagon with Ivan Kosourov. It was June 16, 2014, the day the general died. He told Ivan Kosourov about some details of his stay in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center.

Boris Kolesnikov ended up in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center back in February. Both at court hearings and in interviews with journalists, he always declared his innocence. However, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation charged Kolesnikov with organizing a criminal community, exceeding official powers and provoking a bribe. These accusations themselves caused moral suffering to the GUEBiPK general.

In addition, in the pre-trial detention center the general was subjected to psychological and physical pressure. Boris Kolesnikov stated that psychotropic drugs were mixed into his food and drink, which made him feel bad.

Boris Kolesnikov

Boris Kolesnikov’s father said in an interview with one of the publications: “Boris has lost 30 kg. He looked terrible - all that was left of him was skin and bones. When his skull was broken for the first time in the pre-trial detention center, that’s for sure - they intimidated his family, they said that his family would suffer. Therefore, the son said that he was supposedly washing the window and fell. When he was admitted to the hospital, the lawyers were presented with medical documents. From them it followed: how many times did you have to fall to get such injuries and break your skull? Doctors at Hospital No. 5 gave a preliminary conclusion that the blows were inflicted by a blunt, hard object on the motionless head. So, he was lying there and they swept him away...”

Journalists made different assumptions about the causes of the head injury received by Boris Kolesnikov in the pre-trial detention center. Most publications agreed on one thing: the general “fell off his perch.” But the medical report, on the one hand, and the nature of the injury, on the other, do not confirm this version. The injury was localized in the frontoparietal region.

It is impossible to imagine an adult over 180 cm tall falling onto this area of ​​the head! How Boris Kolesnikov received these injuries and for what reason remains a mystery. However, the veil of secrecy was slightly lifted by Evgeny Shermanov, who in one of his interviews with PASMI stated: “There are interested parties in the corruption of government structures.” Unfortunately, neither E. Shermanov nor Denis Sugrobov’s other subordinates can now name these individuals. Boris Kolesnikov couldn’t either, because he was worried about the safety of his family.

Ivan Kosourov and Boris Kolesnikov rode together in a car transporting prisoners to the Investigative Committee building. The general told his colleague about some details of his stay in the pre-trial detention center.

Ivan Kosourov: “Kolesnikov said that S.A. Novikov and other investigators of the investigative team are putting psychological pressure on the general: they threatened Kolesnikov that they would prosecute his wife. S.A. Novikov and other investigators persuaded the general to self-incriminate himself on the charges brought against him, as well as to give incriminating testimony against subordinate employees of the GUEBiPK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the head of the GUEBiPK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation D.A. Sugrobov and other high-ranking employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs."

By the way, Denis Sugrobov says in an interview with PASMI that Boris’s most serious worries were concern for the safety of his wife and children: “It was precisely the threats to prosecute his wife for committing a particularly serious crime, to deprive her of freedom for a long time, and to send her three young children to kindergartens.” at home, and offers to avoid all this in exchange for slandering his colleagues became the impetus for Kolesnikov to choose the path that, in his opinion, allowed him to protect his relatives not at the cost of lies and loss of honor and dignity, but at the cost of his own life.”

Let us pay attention to one important fact: it was the investigator of the RF IC S.A. Novikov, mentioned by Boris Kolesnikov in his confession to Ivan Kosourov, did not give the general the opportunity to see his wife and children. According to Ivan Kosourov, S.A. Novikov repeatedly threatened him with physical violence in order to induce him to incriminate himself and give false testimony against his colleagues. It is noteworthy that it was S.A. himself. Novikov considered all complaints about illegal actions of officials of the Investigative Committee against imprisoned officers of the GUEBiPK.

Let's give another story. Prosecutor of the Leningrad Special Prosecutor's Office A.E. Kozlov told I.Yu. Kosourov (they were cellmates) that the same style - threats to prosecute the spouse - S.A. Novikov also worked on it. In addition, father S.A. Kozlova, who was a witness in his son’s case, was driven to attempt suicide. After recovery, the father tried to bring the investigator to criminal responsibility for exceeding official authority and for driving a person to suicide (Article 110, 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). But these complaints never reached the court. Guess why? They were examined by investigator S.A. himself. Novikov.

It is obvious that no one will have to answer for abuse of power to the family of the deceased Boris Kolesnikov, which includes three small children.

Not only people in uniform participate in the fight against corrupt officials. They cannot do without the help of civilians, and usually this help is provided by brave and worthy people. What happened in this story? Why did citizens who collaborated with the GUEBiPK as agents doubt the legality of the actions of the Gueb officers who carried out operational search activities (ORM), although they knew that the corrupt officials were caught red-handed and admitted to the facts of theft and taking bribes?! What made S.A. Laskina, A.A. Klyushkina and A.V. Leonov to incriminate GUEBiPK employees? All the same methods of S.A. worked. Novikov and other investigators?