This was a massive undertaking, and at first we weren’t at all sure we could pull it off on our own. But we did. We found and filmed (!!!) every residence in Russia and abroad, tracked down the damn elusive yachts, and painstakingly used geotags, Instagram photos, and archived records to establish where they had sailed and who had been on board. We hid from the FSO (Russia’s Federal Protective Service), which guards these properties. We spent hundreds of person-hours analyzing social media and hunting for the right photographs. We dug through offshore paperwork. We checked domain names. We reviewed literally every photo of the main subject over the course of a year to find the right sneakers and shirts (that’s actually where it all began). We went to Tuscany to film vineyards, and to the Kursk region to film cows.
Damn, we even bought the rights to a song by the band Kombinatsiya so this film would be more fun for you to watch.
I am proud to present the biggest ACF investigation we have produced so far.
And perhaps most importantly in political terms: this is about the second most powerful man in the country. Russia’s prime minister and former president. Putin’s main and permanent partner, the person he trusts most—trusted enough to hand the country over to him for four years.
He’s not just “Dimon” to you. He’s a serious corrupt official.
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is nothing like the harmless, comic figure he appears to be. Don’t be fooled by his sleeping through meetings, badminton, or his fascination with gadgets.
He is a very cunning and greedy man, clearly somewhat obsessed with residences and luxury real estate, and he created one of the largest corruption schemes in the country in order to own them. And, to give him his due, one of the most sophisticated as well.
We found, described, and documented the existence of a network of charitable and non-profit foundations set up by Medvedev’s trusted associates and relatives. The word “charitable” should not mislead you: the only beneficiaries of this “aid” are Medvedev and his family.
They use these foundations to receive “donations” (read: bribes) from oligarchs and state-controlled banks, and then spend the money on palaces, yachts, and vineyards in Russia and abroad.
And yes—it’s very clever. Who owns, for example, Medvedev’s secret country estate in Plyos, which we previously investigated in depth? Formally, no one. It belongs to a charitable organization—the Gradislav Foundation—and that means there are not even any individual ultimate owners, because the property of a non-profit organization legally belongs only to the organization itself, not even to its founders.
But in reality, everyone understands that the estate belongs to Medvedev. It is guarded by the FSO. A unit of the service is stationed there. There is even an official no-fly zone over the Plyos estate.
So the corruption scheme is built around creating a charitable organization headed by a trusted person—a former classmate, a relative. After that, the organization can be pumped full of money and use it to buy palaces and yachts, without having to worry that someone will wave a document in your face with your surname listed in the “owner” field.
There is just one small problem: there can only be so many trusted people. If a small group of individuals is involved in organizing, financing, and managing a whole cluster of charitable foundations whose defining feature is ownership of Prime Minister Medvedev’s property, then everything becomes clear: this is corruption.
Starting with these brightly colored sneakers,
we uncovered and documented Dmitry Medvedev’s entire corruption empire, the foundations that make it up, and his closest trusted associates.
Based on published financial disclosures, we state that at least 70 billion rubles in cash and property were transferred to Medvedev’s foundations.
That includes: — bribes from the oligarchs Usmanov and Mikhelson; — money from Gazprombank, which has repeatedly been caught acting as a “wallet” to cover the expenses of senior officials (see the “Vinokur case” and the “Sechin’s wife’s salary case”); — transfers from other companies (for example, a Bashneft subsidiary).
This money has been used to build, buy, and maintain:
Medvedev’s family estate and agricultural complex in Mansurovo:
The “Psekhako” mountain residence in Sochi:
Vineyards in Anapa and Tuscany:
Milovka, which we showed earlier:
And much more, which we cover in our investigation—in its video version and in its detailed text version with all the documents.
Here I will briefly tell you about just one episode—enough on its own to put both Medvedev and Usmanov in the dock.
This is the second chapter of our story. A very good example of just how shameless these people are.
This is Medvedev’s residence on Rublyovka (an elite area outside Moscow). It is one of the most expensive properties in the Moscow region. It is worth about 5 billion rubles.
Formally, it belongs to the Sotsgosproekt Foundation—completely identical to the DAR Foundation, which holds title to Milovka, Medvedev’s estate in Plyos.
Do you know how this 5-billion-ruble property ended up in Medvedev’s possession?
Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov, one of Russia’s richest oligarchs, with a fortune of $12.5 billion, simply gives both the land and the mansion to Medvedev’s foundation.
What do you call that? Exactly: a bribe.
That is exactly what we call it in our criminal complaint. In fact, this entire investigation—both as a whole and broken down into episodes—will be turned into criminal complaints.
Yes, we understand that the authorities will now do everything possible to prevent law enforcement from taking the steps they are obliged to take. In other words, what happened with Chaika will happen again. But, as they say, in Russia you have to live a long time. Sooner or later we will get what we are after, and we will see all these characters in the dock. And sitting next to them will be those who are blocking the investigation now.
But even that is not the main thing right now. You and I both understand perfectly well that the Kremlin’s main effort will not go into working with the “law enforcement agencies” (as if Chaika and Bastrykin don’t already know what to do), but into stopping the spread of information about the investigation.
They have 100% control over their uniformed servants, but public opinion and people’s minds are not so easy to control. Yes, of course, there’s the TV propaganda machine and all that, but even so, together we can easily punch a hole in the worldview of the average Russian citizen.
Especially since Medvedev’s approval ratings make it clear that not everyone is taken in by his supposed harmlessness. Of course, his legendary “there is no money” remark and his “if teachers don’t have enough money, they should go into business” comment have played an important role here, and if on top of that we clearly show where the money that supposedly doesn’t exist actually went, many of our fellow citizens will find some new choice words for both Medvedev, leader of United Russia, and his boss Putin, who covers up this corruption.
So this is the key point right now: help spread the information. A year ago we released “Chaika”, and even then, when censorship was already hitting hard, there were still more online media outlets at least capable of reporting on the investigation.
Things are much worse now, which makes your role all the more important. And let me remind you once again: you are a huge force. Five million people watched “Chaika,” and 821,000 read the text. Of those, 459,000 made it all the way to the end (heroes!)—to the very end! If every one of those readers had posted the link on their social media and sent it to a couple of acquaintances, the number of views would have been not 5 million but 50 million. And not 15% of the population would have known what the film was about, but 85%.
Let’s work on this together. Especially since the format is so engaging and easy to grasp, with aerial footage and all. We need to make sure that all 20 million people living below the poverty line get to see Medvedev’s apartments with elevators for cars and little angels for fireplaces.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “Why should I share this link? Everyone has already seen it anyway.” Not everyone has. What’s missing is your link, your comment. It’s not enough just to post it on Facebook today. Today. And then again tomorrow. And just to be sure, once more in two days.
A couple of emails. A text message to your beloved grandmother. An email to a former classmate with the subject line: “Take a look at Medvedev’s castle in Italy.”
By the way, I want to say that on social networks aimed at older audiences, this kind of visual content performs even better. The video about Medvedev’s Milovka has 4.2 million views on YouTube and 7 million on Odnoklassniki (a Russian social network). And that’s despite the fact that we never uploaded it to Odnoklassniki ourselves—people spread it across their accounts on their own.
If you don’t want to send it to your grandmother but would rather send it to a foreign acquaintance, no problem—here is a description of the investigation in English.
A separate appeal to journalists:
First, how long can you go on being afraid? You can’t spend your whole life publishing only what feels safe.
Second, this is your traffic, your clicks, your circulation. Nothing draws readers like corruption investigations with evidence like this.
Third, this is your chance to make your profession interesting and useful. Every episode of this investigation can and should be expanded with its own story. A comment from an interested party. Simply going to the scene. We have uncovered only the essentials. Who knows—maybe you will latch onto something (the way we latched onto the sneakers) and find something that makes you the country’s leading journalist. Your name will be mentioned in journalism schools when people talk about how investigations should be done.
So, dear everyone, please help. Our work is meaningless if millions never hear about it. This is a joint project between us and you, and your contribution is no less important.
And don’t forget that I need your signatures in support of my nomination, and that the Anti-Corruption Foundation exists and carries out investigations like this only thanks to your donations. Support us if you believe we are doing something worthwhile.
They unite and protect one another so they can build palaces for themselves; let’s act together to take our country back.