The Insider and Bellingcat have studied the materials of the case, which the Main Directorate of the Investigative Committee opened at the request of the Internal Security Directorate of the FSB in connection with gaining access to the billing of the phones of the FSB officers who poisoned Alexei Navalny. The documents confirm that, in their investigation, The Insider and Bellingcat published authentic telephone call metadata of active FSB officers. Here is an excerpt from the results of the operational-search activities of the FSB’s CSS:
“On December 14, 2020, the media published photographs and data of officers of the FSB of Russia, allegedly involved in the so-called. The “poisoning” of the Russian public and political figure A. A. Navalny. According to the investigation, it was possible to establish the identity of the employees, the details of the connections, the subscriber numbers they used and the location of the base stations by illegally obtaining information from the telecommunications companies PJSC MTS and PJSC MegaFon.
In the course of the operational-search measures, information was obtained that unidentified persons at an unspecified time prepared fake requests from the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow, as well as decisions of the judges of the Khamovnichesko District Court of Moscow, on the basis of which an unidentified person posing as an employee The Ministry of Internal Affairs named “Kuznetsov”, representatives of MTS PJSC and MegaFon PJSC transmitted details of connection details by subscriber numbers, indicating base stations and IMEI numbers.
The results of the conducted operational-search activities indicate that the illegally obtained and transmitted information regarding the FSB of Russia was subsequently published by the mass media, which entailed a significant violation of the rights and legitimate interests of citizens or organizations or the interests of society or the state protected by law. “