You have to understand: we are not a media outlet or a glossy magazine. The Anti-Corruption Foundation publishes all these exposés about "Peskov's watch" or "Peskov's yacht" not for entertainment, not for clicks, and not to rack up citations.
We demand a real fight against corruption, and we are drawing your attention to this problem so that you will demand the same.
That is why we keep coming back to this subject, and will continue to do so, even when people write to us saying, "We're sick of it."
The honeymoon of the Russian president's press secretary on a yacht costing 26 million rubles a week is not society-page news. It is a story about a bribe. It is a story about illicit enrichment. It is a story about corruption that has eaten so deeply into the fabric of the state that even if oil were at $100 a barrel, the country still would not develop.
Nothing will work—from import substitution to the development of the Russian Far East—if corruption has reached the point where a person who is one of the public faces of the government either cannot or does not consider it necessary to hide the extent of his wealth.
What does this mean for everyone, from a schoolteacher to a cop to an FSB officer? It means there is no state as a system. There is a group of people protecting their own interests by using the instruments of the state, but there is no system protecting the interests of society.
Now try demanding that people stop taking bribes for university admission or for traffic violations. The logical response will be: we take bribes to survive, while they do it so they can cruise around on yachts. You can't condemn us if you haven't dealt with them first.
That is exactly why the "Peskov case" matters so much to us. We want, and demand, an official investigation—not just discussion.
Based on the information we gathered from sources, received through the Black Box, and elsewhere, we accuse state official Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to the president of Russia, of receiving a large bribe from Ziyavudin Gadzhievich Magomedov.
This bribe was paid in kind: by providing the world's largest sailing yacht, the Maltese Falcon, for the honeymoon. At the time it was used, chartering it cost 26 million rubles per week.
Ziya Magomedov owns the Summa Group, which includes a large number of companies, including a stake in the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port. Ziya's brother, Magomed Magomedov, served on the Federation Council—the upper house of Russia's parliament—for seven years as a senator representing Smolensk Region. Together, the brothers rank among the ten richest families in Russia.
But those are not the only Magomedov relatives. Ziya also has a cousin—Akhmed Bilalov, well known to us from the Olympic embezzlement scandal—whom Putin publicly reprimanded and fired after construction deadlines were missed and the cost of a ski jump was inflated eightfold. Akhmed Bilalov was dismissed as head of Resorts of the North Caucasus and also removed from his post as vice president of the Olympic Committee. A criminal case was also opened against him, which, as so often happens in such cases, came to nothing. Construction of the ski jump was handled by another of Ziya Magomedov's cousins, Magomed Bilalov. The second cousin was charged in absentia; they left the country, and nothing has been heard of them since.
Presumably, they are waiting for permission to come back.
You may ask: where is the documentary evidence? Where is the payment record for the yacht?
We do not have the payment record. We are a public organization, not an intelligence service. We cannot seize documents. That is why we do not have a piece of paper saying, "I, Ziya Magomedov, paid for Peskov's yacht so that he would take care of certain business problems for me."
That is precisely why, having reached the limit of what an organization with no official powers can investigate, we demand that the FSB and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation take it from here.
We have gathered a great deal of evidence: from Peskov, Navka, Magomedov, and his wife spending time together in restaurants on Capri, to Daniel (Danila?) Magomedov—Ziya's son—and Peskov's daughters vacationing together in clubs along the yacht's route.
However, these indirect indications are not of great importance. A source who told us that Summa and Magomedov paid for the yacht, along with information from the Black Box, tells us enough. People with official powers will be able to establish everything without difficulty.
We have sent official letters to these agencies, stating that we demand an examination of the corrupt relationship between Peskov and Magomedov. It is clear where the necessary documents should be sought and requested. Law enforcement agencies will be able, without much difficulty, to establish that our account is correct and the accusations are well founded.
In addition, we have filed complaints with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island and the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The company that charters out this yacht, which is registered in the United States, is potentially involved in a corrupt transaction with a foreign public official outside U.S. territory. This is a violation of subsection (i) of section 78dd-2 of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Once again, I urge everyone not to forget this story and not to let it go. We must make sure that public outrage is strong enough for Peskov's yachts, watches, and other shady dealings to receive both a legal and an ethical judgment.
Journalists: ask questions.
If you're not a journalist: spread the word.
PS We are still looking for any information related to this case. Write here; it is completely anonymous.
PPS
The Summa Group published a comment surprisingly quickly. Clearly, they had been preparing for this:
If they had not paid for Peskov's yacht, they would simply have said so. But they did pay for it, and they know that we know.