The Telegram channel of the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info became aware of a giant scandal that began in the Irkutsk region, but has already spread to Moscow. In November, employees of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Roslesinforg" were detained in the Bayandaevsky district, who, under the pretext of protecting the forest, were engaged in poaching hunting for bears and cubs. They were caught red-handed, and the photo and video archive of the “trophies” of the poachers was impressive. However, unexpectedly, some unprecedented force began to frankly block any attempts to conduct a normal investigation. The reason for this turned out to be hidden in the poachers' mobile phones. From their correspondence it followed that the killing of bears was for them not their own entertainment, but a trade. They froze bear meat and sent it for money on special planes to Moscow for a number of restaurants. And then the most interesting. It turned out that we are talking about restaurants from the empire of the Araz and Emin Agalarov family, in particular the Lsnoy restaurant, which was opened jointly with Grigory Leps. The menu of this establishment has a lot of venison, which was also supplied by poachers, but there is no bear meat. However, the Lesnoy website says that chef Rustam Tangirov prepares bear dishes for special gourmets on special order.
On October 31, police officers stopped a C217BX138RUS UAZ car completely stuffed with the remains of bears in the Bayandaevsky district of the Irkutsk region. Poachers killed a female bear with three cubs while they were sleeping peacefully in a den. UAZ belonged to Pribaikallesproekt (a branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution Roslesinforg). And behind the wheel were Sergei Nikiforov, and his companion, Mikhail Nichkov, head of the local branch of the FGBU Pribaikallesproekt.
It turned out that the attackers acted not alone, but together with seven more accomplices. it is already known that nine men “on duty” took part in the case. They entered the forest, having in their hands an official task from the management of Pribaikallesproekt to work on the taxation, protection and reproduction of forests. In reality, the attackers staged a prohibited bear hunt.
A criminal case was initiated under the article "Illegal hunting".
During the investigation, it turned out that this was not a one-time crime. Poachers have put such a hunt on stream.
During the search, Nikiforov's phone found a correspondence from which it became clear that the killing of animals and poaching was not a random episode. This is a well-established scheme for the extraction of rare and wild animals in restaurants in Moscow and Irkutsk. The poachers discussed and organized the supply of meat to the Irkutsk Okhotnikov restaurant and to the restaurants of the Agalarov family. At a minimum, correspondence was recorded with the Lesnoy restaurant and a certain Ekaterina Chernykh, who is the general director of NIME - 3 LLC, Crocus Event, the sole founder of which is Emin Agalarov. The poachers negotiated with Cherny about the supply of bear meat and venison on a special plane.
And Rustam was mentioned in the chat - the chef of Lesnoy.
In addition to the correspondence published by Rucriminal.info, photos and video reports were found on the phone, which left no doubt about the intentional killing of the she-bear in the den. The poachers happily filmed the corpses and willingly posed with the rare "prey".
Despite such reinforced concrete evidence, the case was taken away from the local police and sent upstairs. Where it was safely closed, apparently by a call from Moscow. It is not clear how else to explain such actions of Irkutsk law enforcement officers.
The “official investigation” conducted by Pribaikalproekt showed that the poachers were not poachers at all, but “accidental victims” who simply found dead bears and decided to throw them out. To do this, they loaded them into the UAZ and went to the base to drink tea. And then they were arrested by the police.
However, everyone involved was simply fired and that was it. The case is closed, the poachers are officially out of work, the VIP clients of the Agalarov and Leps restaurants enjoyed seasonal bear meat from chef Rustam Tangirov, the case is closed. But what about photos, videos and correspondence? Who will replenish the fauna of the Irkutsk forest and stop the poaching scheme? How simply humanly Emin Agalarov and Grigory Leps are not ashamed?
Timofey Grishin
To be continued
