Speaker 1: Something strange is going on. Another member of the Russian
Speaker 1: elite has been found dead.
Speaker 2: Reports suggests that he fell out of a window poisoned
Speaker 2: with mushrooms.
Speaker 1: Died of heart failure, the ed of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Speaker 1: How comes you are they are? There?
Speaker 2: Dozens of Russian oligachs, politically motivated millionaires have died in
Speaker 2: the space of three years, most of them in suspicious circumstances.
Speaker 2: Many have hidden links to the Kremlin. This is sad
Speaker 2: Oligach Season two, an ongoing investigation into these recently dead
Speaker 2: Russian power brokers. Sad Oligach is created by me jake
Speaker 2: Hanrahan and my Ukrainian colleague Sergey Slipchenko. This is a
Speaker 2: H eleven studio and Coolso Media production. December twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. It's a freezing cold day and Tobolsk,
Speaker 2: an ancient city in the east of Russia. The temperature
Speaker 2: is as low as minus sixteen. Everything is frozen. The
Speaker 2: rivers have a thick layer of ice on the surface
Speaker 2: and a heavy blanket of snow covers the ground. This
Speaker 2: is the Siberian region, a cold, harsh place that covers
Speaker 2: over five million square miles of the Russian Federation. Tubosk
Speaker 2: is considered by some to be the real capital of Siberia.
Speaker 2: Founded in fifteen eighty seven, the city was at one
Speaker 2: point an epicenter of early Russian colonization. Back then, the
Speaker 2: detachment of Cossacks traveled through the rural mountains, attacking and
Speaker 2: defeating the Muslim state of Seabit Canate. From thereon, all
Speaker 2: helbroke loose in the modern Erado. Tobolsk is a peaceful,
Speaker 2: if not isolated place for miles around. When the weather's bed,
Speaker 2: there were green hills as far as the eye can see.
Speaker 2: But today the frost is heavy, the ground is white
Speaker 2: with snow, and the roads are thick with traffic stains slush.
Speaker 2: So on this day that we zoom in on politician
Speaker 2: Vladimir Igorov, forty six years old or of a weight, overpaid, corrupt.
Speaker 2: He's stood by a window on the third floor of
Speaker 2: his house on Kedrovoya Street.
Speaker 1: It's a rich.
Speaker 2: Area, big cars and bigger houses. Igorov is the second
Speaker 2: wealthiest politician in the region. His ill gotten gains have
Speaker 2: built him a comfortable lifestyle, well until they didn't. Somehow,
Speaker 2: of Vladimir Igorov falls clean out of the window of
Speaker 2: his house around thirty five feet to the concrete his way.
Speaker 2: He's free falling at a speed of about fourteen meters
Speaker 2: per second. Takes him only one and a half to
Speaker 2: hit the concrete. With a force like that, an energy
Speaker 2: of roughly nine thousand duels. Your body breaks as it lands,
Speaker 2: huge damage to your skeleton, shattered bones, limbs broken from
Speaker 2: their joints, your organs blend up inside of you, internal bleeding, hemorrhaging.
Speaker 2: Its game over. According to an eyewitness of Vladimir, Igorov
Speaker 2: hit the ground hard in the courtyard of his house,
Speaker 2: But then there were reports that said he died of
Speaker 2: heart issues. It sounds like a bit of an understatement
Speaker 2: for a man that fell out of his window. I mean,
Speaker 2: if your heart bursts upon impact against hard cement from
Speaker 2: a higher fall, technically that dying of heart issues. I
Speaker 2: don't think that's how they meant it. The press was
Speaker 2: essentially saying he simply had a heart attack and keeled
Speaker 2: over and died. To add to the confusion, Russian newspaper
Speaker 2: Commissant was first to report on Igorov's demise. They said
Speaker 2: there was a quote no external signs of criminal death.
Speaker 2: This was related to them for beatim by the Investigative
Speaker 2: Committee for the twin Men Region, part of a government
Speaker 2: agency that explores serious crimes. Not only is that a
Speaker 2: pretty suspect sentence to come out with whilst the body
Speaker 2: is still warm, it's also a very hasty conclusion. Both
Speaker 2: Commercant themselves and state media tast News reported that investigators
Speaker 2: were still establishing the cause of Igorov's death when this
Speaker 2: quote was provided to Bolsk City Council then published an
Speaker 2: obituary saying Igorov diet due to quote a result of
Speaker 2: an accident. So let's try to get this straight. Vladim
Speaker 2: Egorov fell out of a window and died of high issues.
Speaker 2: Was the Russian authority said it was an accident just
Speaker 2: after they told the media that they're still investigating. Sounds
Speaker 2: to me like the right hand they didn't know what
Speaker 2: the left hand was doing. So why the confusion and
Speaker 2: why does it seem so fishy from the get go? Well,
Speaker 2: in the words of the seventeenth century Sufi poet Rumy,
Speaker 2: greed makes a man easy pray for death. Vladim Egorov
Speaker 2: was a very greedy man on a scale of one
Speaker 2: to ten. How corrupt would you say this ego of
Speaker 2: fellow was one being like not corrupt at all and
Speaker 2: ten being Joseph Muscat level corruption like that fellow from Malta, Like,
Speaker 2: how corrupt was this guy?
Speaker 3: From what I can see like quite Crplet's say definitely
Speaker 3: in the upper side, and we could say maybe like eight,
Speaker 3: but I feel like if we knew everything, it would
Speaker 3: definitely be a ten.
Speaker 2: That's journalist Sergei Slipchenko, my partner on this project. You
Speaker 2: remember him from the first season together. We've once again
Speaker 2: been working away researching these strange deaths of the Russian elite,
Speaker 2: not because we particularly give a shit about them, many
Speaker 2: have supported or profited from Putin's war on Ukraine, but
Speaker 2: because to investigate these strange deaths is to better understand
Speaker 2: the turmoil inside the Kremlin. That's my theory, at least
Speaker 2: back to Sergi.
Speaker 3: You know, when I was initially looking into him, it
Speaker 3: was like, oh, he passed away, and they're like, if
Speaker 3: you remember in twenty sixteen he was charged for essentially
Speaker 3: not charging businessmen like for the lens, you know, like
Speaker 3: they're like renting like space. I don't know exactly what
Speaker 3: it was, whether it was like farmland, or actual like
Speaker 3: industrial space or something like that. But essentially he was
Speaker 3: and charging people for the rent, like he wasn't collecting it.
Speaker 3: He was working for the city of Taboysk and he's
Speaker 3: working as the head of the committee for I believe
Speaker 3: it translates to like land rights and forestry, so essentially
Speaker 3: kind of overlooking the city's lands forests, and part of
Speaker 3: his job was, you know, collecting rent. People are supposed
Speaker 3: to pay him for using the land. And what he
Speaker 3: was found guilty of was negligence of essentially not collecting
Speaker 3: rent from several businessmen, allegedly his friends, right, so they
Speaker 3: can run their business.
Speaker 4: They don't have to pay him.
Speaker 3: I mean, the thing is is like officially he didn't
Speaker 3: collect it at all, and that's the city lost it.
Speaker 3: If I had to guess, I would think he collected it.
Speaker 3: He just didn't put it into the city's budget kind
Speaker 3: of thing, right, which was supposed to. In these articles,
Speaker 3: the ones that came out around his death, they just
Speaker 3: mentioned like his sentencing, which was one point six million rubles,
Speaker 3: which I looked up in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: That was about twenty thousand dollars like.
Speaker 3: American twenty thousand years d but actually found in our
Speaker 3: article from the time when this is kind of happening,
Speaker 3: like in twenty fourteen, is when he was accused of
Speaker 3: this by deputies of Tubolsk City DUMO, so essentially like
Speaker 3: local politicians. They sent a letter to the regional prosecutor
Speaker 3: and they actually claimed he stole forty four million rubles.
Speaker 3: They said that, like he caused forty four million in
Speaker 3: damages to the city budget, which I again kind of
Speaker 3: converted at the time that was one million and a
Speaker 3: quarter when in a quarter million USD. So what they
Speaker 3: kind of alleged was a lot higher than when he
Speaker 3: was charged for, which you know could be depending on
Speaker 3: the city, Like the city decided, okay, we can only
Speaker 3: prove that one point six million rubles was the crime,
Speaker 3: whereas in reality was much higher.
Speaker 4: And that's what those guys alleged.
Speaker 3: Like that article that was reading kind of paints a
Speaker 3: picture of what kind of personal Goo was because in
Speaker 3: addition to the letter like claiming that he did this,
Speaker 3: I guess you can say Besslumuan right fraud. They were
Speaker 3: also those two deputies that reported him. They actually reached
Speaker 3: out to the regional like a head of I think
Speaker 3: it's an Investigative Committee essentially a regional like I guess
Speaker 3: you could say FBI kind of comparative that they oversee
Speaker 3: the region's security. They're mostly involved in like economic crimes
Speaker 3: and criminal crimes prosecution on a federal level, they're in charge.
Speaker 3: And they reached out to them saying that they were
Speaker 3: concerned about threats from you Gotov.
Speaker 4: According to them, he would talk kind of openly like
Speaker 4: they should be killed and buried. That's a quote that
Speaker 4: they give to a newspaper.
Speaker 2: So the reports from this don't have much information. In Russia,
Speaker 2: the press isn't free, and reporting on government corruption is
Speaker 2: a bad idea for a journalist's career. On the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five Press Freedom Index, Russia was ranked one hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy one out of one hundred and eighty, the
Speaker 2: latter being the worst. All independent Russia news channels are banned.
Speaker 2: If you try to criticize the state, you might end
Speaker 2: up in serious trouble. Okay, now, with time for a
Speaker 2: quick outbreak. All right, enough for that. Now back to
Speaker 2: the shore. Still, we've deduced that Vladimir Igorov was up
Speaker 2: to one of two things in regards to what he
Speaker 2: was care and charged for one, he was allowing his
Speaker 2: friends and associates to use state owned land for free,
Speaker 2: abusing his position to likely court favor with other wealthy individuals.
Speaker 2: Or two, he was saving state owned land for his
Speaker 2: friends and associates, making sure they got.
Speaker 1: The plots they wanted.
Speaker 2: Instead of putting the rent they then paid for these
Speaker 2: areas back into the local council kitty as he was
Speaker 2: supposed to, he simply kept all the rent for himself
Speaker 2: put it in his pocket. Wam double corruption? Personally, I'm
Speaker 2: with Surgery on this. I think option two is most
Speaker 2: likely both pretty much.
Speaker 1: As bad as each other.
Speaker 2: Though Igorov was happy to steal from his community and
Speaker 2: threaten the people who weren't happy about it. This wasn't
Speaker 2: just the discruntal public though. The people he threatened held
Speaker 2: some way in the Toposka area.
Speaker 3: So they're the deputies right there. Essentially, It's like if
Speaker 3: a politician came to the police and was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: this other you know, bureaucrat or whatever is like embezzling
Speaker 3: funds and then he was like openly talking about, you
Speaker 3: know what, those guys should be killed. That that was
Speaker 3: their concern. They reached out to the guy they're like, hey,
Speaker 3: can you look into this, And interestingly, at the bottom
Speaker 3: of the article, it's like, at least according to these politicians,
Speaker 3: the head never heard about their complaint and they're not
Speaker 3: looking into it. So allegedly nothing was done about those
Speaker 3: threats or at least their concerns about those threats.
Speaker 2: But they're saying they're saying they didn't even hear about it.
Speaker 3: They said that, like, you know, they reported it, and
Speaker 3: they said they didn't hear anything about it, that like
Speaker 3: their that their concerns weren't hurt, and that they couldn't
Speaker 3: file an official complaint kind of thing. That's according to them,
Speaker 3: So I mean, it's kind of like he said, she said,
Speaker 3: but yeah, they said that they weren't even heard that
Speaker 3: there was no official you know, you can like file
Speaker 3: like an official complain of the police basically, and nobody
Speaker 3: took them in. Two years later, he again, he did
Speaker 3: get prosecuted. They found kind of like negligence. I guess
Speaker 3: that he just happened not to pay attention to collecting
Speaker 3: those you know, millions, but he didn't even get punished
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 2: So, as you can see, Vladimir Igorov should have been
Speaker 2: prosecuted his crimes were not committed past the statute of limitations.
Speaker 2: It was only two years before he was brought to court,
Speaker 2: so we should have got.
Speaker 1: What was coming to right. We looked it up.
Speaker 2: He was supposed to be sentenced to two years correcttional labor.
Speaker 2: This means he would have been allowed to continue working
Speaker 2: in his position in the local government, but would have
Speaker 2: been fined five to twenty percent of his wages. This
Speaker 2: money was to be renumerated into the community k offfers
Speaker 2: until Igorov had paid back all the money he'd stolen.
Speaker 2: For some reason, though this didn't happen. They may Igorov
Speaker 2: completely got away with it.
Speaker 4: Even though it was just two years later.
Speaker 3: They said it was kind of too late to charge
Speaker 3: him with it, and he never faced any punishment. There
Speaker 3: was actually a similar incident in twenty eleven, so this
Speaker 3: would be three years prior to that. Same thing happened
Speaker 3: where he was kind of losing money for the city budget,
Speaker 3: and allegedly nothing happened. Same two politicians complained to Well
Speaker 3: apparently directly to putin like directly to him.
Speaker 4: He got some kind of punishment, but nothing changed.
Speaker 2: Essentially, right, this was an open letter to Poot and
Speaker 2: It wasn't like they kind of called him up, but
Speaker 2: there was this public open letter as in, we've tried everything,
Speaker 2: this guy is stealing for some reason. He's not really
Speaker 2: being prosecuted. DEPO in please help was basically what was happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like that's the idea, right that like nobody's above him.
Speaker 3: So like if you're kind of I guess, like you
Speaker 3: could say last resort and you know this has happened
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven. Then again three years later they send
Speaker 3: another letter to the they're like municipal our prosecutor, and
Speaker 3: you know, clearly something came out of it in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: but again they were claiming forty four million rubles in damage. Right,
Speaker 3: all they found was one point six million. That's like
Speaker 3: less than one tenth of what they claimed. And he
Speaker 3: didn't even get punishment for It's like, yeah, you're guilty,
Speaker 3: but oh well, we can't do anything about it. Essentially,
Speaker 3: that's all that came out of it, right, not even
Speaker 3: a slap on the wrist. It was just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you did that, but we can't do anything. And he
Speaker 3: later on he becomes he went on to be like
Speaker 3: part of the Federal Party and stuff. He became a
Speaker 3: deputy of United Russia.
Speaker 2: It's complicated, but United Russia is Putin's party. Tawilauners himself
Speaker 2: through politics and the media to be Russia's perpetual leader,
Speaker 2: or you could say dictator. Putin uses the party to
Speaker 2: maintain power by acting as it's the facto leader. He
Speaker 2: actually ran as an independent in the last election, but
Speaker 2: it's all smoke and mirrors. It simply allowed him to
Speaker 2: keep power no matter what, whilst trying to present the
Speaker 2: voting system as democratic and open, it's anything but. As
Speaker 2: the man both behind the scenes and at the forefront,
Speaker 2: Putin uses United Russia to secure legislative and political back
Speaker 2: in for whatever he wants to happen. Through this broadly
Speaker 2: popular political party, he can maintain his grip on the
Speaker 2: government and push through his many murderous policies.
Speaker 1: Throughout the world.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows that United Russia is Putin's party. It just
Speaker 2: has to go around the houses a little bit to
Speaker 2: pretend like he's not actually running things with an iron fist.
Speaker 2: So Igorov himself was a staunch supporter of Putins United Russia,
Speaker 2: as Sergei said, he joined up and became a member.
Speaker 2: It will probably be no surprise to learn then that
Speaker 2: Igorov was a big fan of the twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: Russian invasion of Ukraine. Award that has taken the lives
Speaker 2: of over thirteen thousand civilians, almost eight hundred of them
Speaker 2: being children. More than forty six thousand Ukrainian military have
Speaker 2: been killed in that time and half a million wounded.
Speaker 2: We found Vladimir Igorov's VK profile still up almost two
Speaker 2: years after his death. VK is essentially just Russian Facebook.
Speaker 2: Here's an idea of the sort of thing Igorov would
Speaker 2: post up there. In the context of a twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three Russian Victory Day post, he writes, quote, Dear Tobolsk residents,
Speaker 2: our dear veterans, The memory of World War II unites
Speaker 2: us today and makes us invincible in the face of
Speaker 2: many new challenges one by older generations. Victory still inspires
Speaker 2: us to new achievements, strengthens our spirit, helps us overcome
Speaker 2: difficulties and move forward. Our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers
Speaker 2: defended our motherland. Now is our turn to stand as
Speaker 2: a war for our country, to protect our honest historic memory.
Speaker 2: Even today, every Russian is bitter to hear and see
Speaker 2: attempts to rewrite history to take away the conquered peace
Speaker 2: and freedom for humanity from our people.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: Igorov also posted about his family who were training in
Speaker 2: the Russian military in preparation for a deployment to Ukraine
Speaker 2: to help with the invasion. In twenty twenty two, Igorov
Speaker 2: posted up several pictures with said family with this caption quote, Today,
Speaker 2: a significant event happened in our family. Having served his
Speaker 2: military service in the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces,
Speaker 2: our son, nephew, grandson, and brother, Yuri Igorov was demobilized
Speaker 2: by the Federation. My older brother and I decided to
Speaker 2: meet him at the checkpoint of the military unit. We
Speaker 2: thank his commanders and officers for creating decent and comfortable
Speaker 2: conditions for his service.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: Now, whilst Igorov loved the war, as in he was
Speaker 2: proud that his country invaded Ukraine, he didn't quite want
Speaker 2: his family to actually serve in not properly anyway. As
Speaker 2: is with any rich, corrupt politician, whether it be Russia,
Speaker 2: England or America, it's never their kids who actually end
Speaker 2: up on the front lines.
Speaker 1: Not really.
Speaker 2: Igorov posed as a man of the people but actually
Speaker 2: he was a thieving glutton.
Speaker 5: Looking back on Vladimir segav life, we can already see
Speaker 5: a picture of building up that which consists of the
Speaker 5: local archetypal, corrupted magne that leaves a good life.
Speaker 1: That's Victor Mihail.
Speaker 2: He's a researcher on my team who's been working with
Speaker 2: us on this season of sad Oligach. Victor's been looking
Speaker 2: into Igorov's laviage lifestyle and how it allowed him to
Speaker 2: circumvent the laws that normal people have to stick to.
Speaker 2: Just as a quick reminder here, this is not just
Speaker 2: a Russian thing. It's a politician thing. Okay, now it's
Speaker 2: time for a quick outbreak or enough of that, now
Speaker 2: back to the shore. So what kind of flash is stuff?
Speaker 2: Was ego of up too?
Speaker 5: You know, meeting with influential people, partying, eating only the
Speaker 5: good stuff, circumventing even pandemic restrictions to make insane megalomania celebrations,
Speaker 5: all while constantly hitting news headlines and wile successfully by
Speaker 5: passing the law and his conviction for an authoriosed selling
Speaker 5: of land. This kind of flest also has benefits for
Speaker 5: the people who are in your circle or around you
Speaker 5: or in your family, and one such an example can
Speaker 5: be illustrated by an event which happened on twenty eight
Speaker 5: November twenty twenty two. One of his nephews, Yuryegorov, was
Speaker 5: released as demobilized from his mandatory service in the Russian
Speaker 5: Army on twenty eight November, being when Russian invasion of
Speaker 5: Ukraine was still in full swing. It was the first
Speaker 5: year one can guess that the son of a local
Speaker 5: baron will have much trouble in such an environment and
Speaker 5: he will have guests rights, since that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: He hasn't been deployed.
Speaker 5: Or signing a contract to go in an active combat zone.
Speaker 5: But asper the words of Vladimirgorov himself on his v
Speaker 5: contact page, he had more than decent and even more
Speaker 5: comfortable conditions in the army.
Speaker 2: So Igorov's nephew, who he wrote the glowing VK post
Speaker 2: about how proud he is how he served the country,
Speaker 2: actually did for court. He basically went in for some
Speaker 2: Kushti training just to say he took part. Obviously it
Speaker 2: was mandatory military service, but not the same kind of
Speaker 2: military service that your average person has. This was again
Speaker 2: facilitated by Igorov's connections that it built over the years.
Speaker 2: Compiling his Empire of Dirt, we found out that Igorov
Speaker 2: was also part of so called entrepreneur group named Opera Rossi.
Speaker 2: This group is tied to the invasion of Ukraine, providing
Speaker 2: economic and rehabilitation courses to Russian military. Perhaps these connections
Speaker 2: are how he got his family through what is essentially
Speaker 2: live action role playing the war.
Speaker 5: Looking at the profiles that commented on the post when
Speaker 5: Vladimirgrov celebrated at the mobilization of his nephew, I also
Speaker 5: found the people who give such comments. These comments consisting
Speaker 5: of also parents who had their sons serving the same way,
Speaker 5: and by checking the profiles you can see that they
Speaker 5: are by no means of ordinary people. They are either lawyers, economists,
Speaker 5: even civilian playing pilots who comment that their sons also
Speaker 5: serve and they are already home while putting a lot
Speaker 5: of laughing emogies. And some people just say that they
Speaker 5: serve nearby and that there were no problems and so on,
Speaker 5: that it was very comfortable to me. At least, it
Speaker 5: seems like a nest of people who have it very
Speaker 5: good in life. They even you know, use their influence
Speaker 5: to just send their stance to a mandatory military service
Speaker 5: just more like a symbolic approach, because they will not
Speaker 5: be treated the same way as a regular conscript, So
Speaker 5: this service is really symbolic.
Speaker 2: All this should give you an idea of what kind
Speaker 2: of man Vladimir Igorov was. This was a politician who
Speaker 2: stole from his own people, got fat off the theft,
Speaker 2: and then acted like a member of the mafia. Remember,
Speaker 2: he was telling anyone who'd listen that he wants the
Speaker 2: people who discovered his corruption to be murdered and buried
Speaker 2: in a shallow grave along with other rich folks in
Speaker 2: the region. His family was sent to what is basically
Speaker 2: a simulation of mandatory military service. You can start to
Speaker 2: see how many people might have been sick of him.
Speaker 1: Now, As I mentioned.
Speaker 2: At the start, the Russian newspaper Commissant was the very
Speaker 2: first outlet to mention Egov's death. They reported very quickly
Speaker 2: that there were quote no external signs of criminal death,
Speaker 2: criminal death being an awkward way of saying murder. After
Speaker 2: the initial talk of Igorov's fast relocation from window to pavement,
Speaker 2: Commissant was quick to put the news out there that
Speaker 2: he'd had a heart attack. You have to wonder, though,
Speaker 2: did they know the cause of death before the official
Speaker 2: word from the coroner. Let's look a little bit closer
Speaker 2: at Commissant. So we dug around a bit, and basically
Speaker 2: this newspaper is a pro Kremlin wreck, propaganda for Putin
Speaker 2: and his regime. It's owned by a man named Alisha Usmanov.
Speaker 2: According to the US government, not exactly trustworthy, but according
Speaker 2: to them, Usmanov is quote one of Russia's most politically
Speaker 2: influential oligachs with close ties to the Kremlin. Even believe
Speaker 2: that he had a hand in a so called Russian
Speaker 2: interference campaign in the twenty sixteen US presidential election. Now,
Speaker 2: I personally rarely consider any politician to be a reliable source,
Speaker 2: but it is certainly true that Usmanov has his fingers
Speaker 2: in many different pies. According to the highly trustworthy OCCRP,
Speaker 2: the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Usmanov has at
Speaker 2: a minimum three billion dollars in assets. His overall wealth
Speaker 2: is estimated to be even more than that, at sixteen
Speaker 2: billion dollars.
Speaker 1: They said, quote.
Speaker 2: The Uzbek born multimillionaire is known to be close to
Speaker 2: both Russian president Vladimir Putin, with whom he is alleged
Speaker 2: to have financial ties, and former President Dmitri Medvedev, who
Speaker 2: has reportedly benefit from the personal use of Usmanov's luxurious residences.
Speaker 2: How Sweet, through USM Group, a holding structor Usmanov uses
Speaker 2: for his business empire. His interests span telecommunications, media and mining.
Speaker 2: A representative of Usmanov told the OCCRP that he has
Speaker 2: never benefited from the Russian government nor the privatization of
Speaker 2: state assets, and that his capital was obtained solely through
Speaker 2: transparent investment and asset management. They added that the ownership
Speaker 2: of most real estate and property long ago transferred to
Speaker 2: his family and he can only use them on a
Speaker 2: rental basis.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: I've got to say that last paragraph is extremely funny.
Speaker 2: Who in their right mind believes that a man who
Speaker 2: made sixteen billion dollars has to now rent out his
Speaker 2: own properties from his family?
Speaker 1: Get real?
Speaker 2: The only real reason to do that would be some
Speaker 2: kind of money laundering or tax dodging, hardly something he'd
Speaker 2: mentioned to the OCCRP. In my opinion, that is just nonsense.
Speaker 2: But still, how did Comma sank get the info about
Speaker 2: the suspected heart attack. The Investigative Committee for the Tuman Region,
Speaker 2: part of a government agency that explores serious crimes, apparently.
Speaker 1: Gave it to them.
Speaker 2: They also said, though that they will be carrying on
Speaker 2: an investigation into the death of Vladimir Igorov, but that
Speaker 2: never happened. He just vanished. They stopped investigating. There's been
Speaker 2: no more news, so I had a look to see
Speaker 2: if there was anything else. The Investigative Committee for the
Speaker 2: Toyman Region didn't investigate.
Speaker 1: There was.
Speaker 2: Turns out they not only didn't but outright refused to investigate.
Speaker 1: A torture case.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, a Russian anti fascist activist named
Speaker 2: Yury Nesnimov was allegedly tortured in police custody. He said
Speaker 2: had been beaten during an interrogation on September one and
Speaker 2: tortured in the early hours of September two. He said
Speaker 2: they threatened to shoot and rape him. He says he
Speaker 2: was then suffocated with a plastic bag, tortured with electricity,
Speaker 2: and water boarded. Novaya Gazetta Europe reported the following quote.
Speaker 2: The investigators also interviewed two employees of Russia's Center for
Speaker 2: Combating Extremism and detective Rimayov. All of them said no
Speaker 2: torture had been used on Nesdamov and his testimony had
Speaker 2: been given without coercion end quote, and so the case
Speaker 2: was closed without an investigation. Basically, whatever the committee is
Speaker 2: told by the state is what they say happened. So
Speaker 2: I'm wondering did the government simply tell the investigative committee
Speaker 2: for the Toyman Region the Vladimir Igorov died of a
Speaker 2: heart attack and that was it. Oh, Considering that the
Speaker 2: investigation then vanished without more official conclusion, it seems quite
Speaker 2: possible to me. The info was passed to the Kremlin
Speaker 2: friendly commissant, it was quickly reported as a high issue,
Speaker 2: and that is that. One last thing. In the wake
Speaker 2: of Igorov's death, there were many grieving messages on his
Speaker 2: aforementioned VIK page. That's normal, Norme is completely bad. The
Speaker 2: comments included quote my condolences to the family and the friends,
Speaker 2: and at forty six years old, it's too early, creepy,
Speaker 2: and my condolences to all the family. But two other
Speaker 2: comments did catch my eye. Both are from now deleted users.
Speaker 2: The first one says quote he was a very bad person.
Speaker 2: The second one, the comment is completely deleted from the page.
Speaker 2: We don't know what it said. It just says this
Speaker 2: comment has been deleted by the user. The repliers are
Speaker 2: still there though. Here's what they said. By your tongue,
Speaker 2: this is how gossip is born. God is your judge,
Speaker 2: and you are talking nonsense. You're drawing stupid conclusions. Calm
Speaker 2: down already and let your tongue rest. And have you
Speaker 2: been informed of anything personally? All in all, I think
Speaker 2: it's safe to say this is another extremely suspicious death
Speaker 2: of a wealthy Russian politician connected to the Kremlin. You've
Speaker 2: been listening to sad Oliga At season two produced by
Speaker 2: H eleven Studios for Cool Zone Media. Writing, editing, producing,
Speaker 2: concept and recording by myself, Jake Hanrahan, Research and reporting
Speaker 2: by Sergei Slipchenko, Me and Victim Mihail. Executive producing by
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtman. Music by Sam Black, artwork by George Jutefort,
Speaker 2: Sound mixed by Splicing Block.
Speaker 1: Seemo.
Speaker 2: Of the projects at Hanrahan dot tv. Get me on
Speaker 2: social media at Jake under School Hanrahan.
Speaker 1: That's h A N r A h A n