For the past two years, people have kept telling me: corruption doesn’t shock anyone anymore. Officials aren’t even fired for stealing billions. But if you can prove that someone is a maniac who kills or rapes people, that’s a different matter.
But how are you supposed to prove that people are being killed? It’s not as if I can produce a photo of a minister tying up a victim’s hands alongside Chikatilo (Andrei Chikatilo, a notorious Soviet serial killer).
That’s why, when our investigations department brought in documents showing the Chaika-Tsapok connection, I thought: surely now they have nowhere to run.
Chikatilo was the defining bloody criminal drama of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era. Operation “Forest Belt” began in 1985, and the serial killer was executed by firing squad in 1994.
The Tsapok gang and the Kushchyovskaya murders are the most notorious murder case of the Putin era. The times are different now: Russia is at war, and political killings are not uncommon, but from the standpoint of criminal investigation and the history of crime, the Tsapoks are the case that will make it into the textbooks.
We proved — and no one doubts the credibility of our evidence — that the wives of sitting deputy prosecutors general were in business together with the wives of the Tsapok gang’s murderers.
Our investigation contains many facts, each of which should be grounds for opening a criminal case: the murder in Irkutsk, the theft of cargo ships from a shipping company, the transfer of money to Switzerland, cartel collusion, and so on and so forth.
But really, against the backdrop of the Tsapoks, all of that already seems less important. The sequence of events here should be obvious: the Kremlin checks its own Unified State Register of Legal Entities and confirms that we are right. After that, both Chaika and half the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office resign, and the whole country watches a public investigation unfold.
Instead:
What do you mean? Sitting Deputy Prosecutor General Lopatin and then-serving administrative chief Staroverov set up a company with the Tsapoks, and then bought hotels together with the prosecutor general’s son — and that doesn’t spark any interest?
The line about “we saw this back in the summer and other people were involved then” is easy enough to understand: they don’t want to engage with me and the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), so they keep pushing the story that “someone leaked it to them.”
But never mind — let’s follow their logic. The materials were given to the Kremlin in the summer, and some mysterious “someone” passed them to the ACF (obviously, this person will never be named). So what now? Are people from the Prosecutor General’s Office allowed to set up companies with the Tsapoks? Is the prosecutor general’s son allowed to hang people in Irkutsk?
It makes for a curious dialogue: — Look, here is evidence that the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office is linked to murderers, and the prosecutor general’s family is steeped in corruption! — No, well, we saw that back in the summer. We’re not interested.
Obviously, the word “Tsapoks” cannot be allowed to appear in the same sentence as “prosecutor general,” and in Peskov’s version it does not. Everything gets twisted into: “Navalny found the business dealings of Chaika’s children, and they are adults.”
Except this is not “Chaika’s children’s business.” It is “the joint business of Chaika’s family and entourage with bloody gangsters and child killers.” There is a big difference.
Dear everyone, I am sure that no one needs a prosecutor general like this, or a prosecutor’s office like this, regardless of our political differences. It is no coincidence that only four crooked deputies spoke up for Chaika — all former prosecutors — and no one else.
But the Anti-Corruption Foundation cannot remove the prosecutor general from office. I admit that honestly. Only the media and public opinion can do that.
We have done the investigation. Now journalists must push for a proper response and proper answers, not this nonsense being put out by Peskov, a crook and bribe-taker. Everyone else should help us spread the investigation and the film, and speak out about what is happening whenever the opportunity arises.
That is how the fight against corruption works — not only, and not even primarily, through investigations, but through rejecting those involved in conduct incompatible with public service. The authorities must understand that society completely rules out any possibility of sweeping this case under the rug.
If we forgive them for the Tsapoks, then what will we be able to hold them accountable for at all?