Suffered for the case: ex-employees of the Investigative Committee and the FSB convicted of falsifying charges

The verdict in the case against the former employees of the Investigative Committee, the FSB and their accomplice, a lawyer, was handed down on January 26 by the 235th garrison military court. According to investigators, the defendants in the case falsely accused the management of Merlion of organizing an assassination attempt in order to eventually seize their business assets. Six defendants were sentenced to 14 to 19 years in prison for organizing a criminal community, attempted bribery in the amount of 15 billion rubles, falsification of evidence and abuse of authority. The details of the case and the verdict are in the Izvestia material.

What were the security forces convicted of in the Merlion case?

On January 26, the 235th garrison military court sentenced former law enforcement officers who, according to investigators, fabricated charges against the shareholders of the large IT company Merlion. The defendants received from 14 to 19 years in prison.

Among those convicted are former heads of the Khoroshevsky department of the Moscow Investigative Committee, Rustam Yusupov, and the Investigative Committee's SU for the Northwestern District of Moscow, Sergei Romodanovsky, investigator Andrei Zhiryutin, employees of the Federal Security Service of Russia for Moscow and the Moscow Region, Alexander Bibishev and Pavel Krylov, as well as lawyer Vadim Lyalin.

The defendants were found guilty of organizing a criminal community, attempted bribery of 15 billion rubles, falsification of evidence and abuse of authority.

The court and the investigation found that in 2019, another former investigator of the Investigative Committee, Kirill Kachura (recognized as a foreign agent), and his father, Vitaly, created an organized criminal community. Both are currently on the international wanted list.

They recruited employees of the Investigative Committee and the FSB to participate in the OPS. As a result, Romodanovsky and Yusupov, in complicity with Zhiryutin, Bibishev and Krylov, fabricated a case against three shareholders and top managers of the IT company Merlion, the Prosecutor General's Office noted.

"In February and September 2020, criminal cases were initiated on serious and especially serious crimes against innocent people. They were charged with attempted murder in a generally dangerous manner and detention was initiated, where the accused were held from October 2020 to August 2021," the supervisory authority said.

At the same time, the ex-law enforcement officers, through Lyalin's lawyer, demanded a bribe of 15 billion rubles from the victims, offering to close the criminal case. However, the OPS members failed to complete their plan — the investigation of the charges against Merlion's top managers was transferred to the central office of the Investigative Committee, which closed the criminal case "for lack of criminal events."

"During the investigation, it was also established that in December 2020, Romodanovsky and Yusupov, with other accomplices, received a bribe of 109 million rubles for not bringing some persons to criminal responsibility and demanded 10 million euros for not bringing others," the Prosecutor General's Office added.

As a result, Romodanovsky was sentenced to 19 years, Yusupov — to 18 years. They were also fined 109 million rubles. Zhiryutin was sentenced to 17 years, Bibishev — to 16 years and three months, Krylov — to 16 years, Lyalin — to 14 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal colony. They are deprived of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities. The civil claims of the victims for the recovery of moral damages of 5 million each, in solidarity with the convicts, were also satisfied.

The courts also satisfied a number of lawsuits filed by the Prosecutor General's Office regarding the transfer of movable and immovable property of convicts to the state income. For example, property worth 72 million rubles was seized from Zhiryutin. The amount of the claim included an apartment in the west of the capital owned by Zhiryutin's father, a 15-hectare plot of land in the Tver region, a 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer car and another 2008 car, as well as cash in the amount of 13 million rubles.

In September 2025, the Dorogomilovsky Court of Moscow satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office and seized the real estate of Kirill Kachura and his relatives for more than 247 million rubles.

How the Merlion management was framed

In April 2024, another verdict was handed down in the case of the Russian IT giant. Vyacheslav Simonenko, ex-CEO of Merlion, received 22 years in a strict regime penal colony for creating a criminal community, knowingly false denunciation and false testimony, as well as a particularly large bribe.

In 2020, Simonenko contacted the police with a statement that molotov cocktails had been thrown at his house near Krasnogorsk in 2015. According to him, he was "ordered" by Merlion co-owners Oleg Karchev, Vladislav Mangutov and Alexey Abramov, as well as top manager Boris Levin, in order not to pay $4.5 million — his share of the sale of the company's shares. A weighty argument for the investigators was the confession of one of the perpetrators of the assassination attempt, Grigory Zherenov, a veteran of military operations in Donbass. He stated that he was hired by Merlion executives.

In February 2022, Simonenkov was already detained. As the investigation found out, with the help of a false denunciation, he tried to carry out a raider seizure of the company. The prosecution considers Alexei Nesnov, a former investigator in particularly important cases, to be the main participant in the scheme on the part of law enforcement agencies. According to the investigation, he falsified the criminal case against the co-owners of Merlion. It was not possible to detain Nesnov — he fled to the United Arab Emirates.

All charges were dropped from the Merlion management, they were acquitted and rehabilitated. All the managers filed civil lawsuits against Simonenko, each for 2 billion rubles. The court partially satisfied them, collecting 2 million rubles in favor of each of them.

Aggravating circumstances

The verdict handed down on January 26 is exceptionally harsh, according to Albert Khaleyan, a criminal defense lawyer and partner at the Vector Prime Moscow Bar Association.

—The imposed terms of imprisonment — from 14 to 19 years — are at the upper limit of the sanctions for the articles incriminated to the defendants," he said. — The law always considers crimes using one's status as posing an increased public danger.

The expert recalled that the aggravating circumstances include the huge size of the bribe, as well as the scale of abuse. In addition, the crimes were committed not on a one-time basis, but as part of the activities of an organized group.

The severity of the sentence, according to Albert Haleyan, is due to the severity and resonance of the case, which can be described as a "criminal conspiracy against justice."

"The sentence is harsh, but natural because of the unprecedented audacity of the crime," he added. — It sends a clear signal about the inadmissibility of corruption and abuse in the law enforcement system.

Veronika Polyakova, a criminal lawyer and managing partner of the Business Legal Group Bar Association, confirmed that serious terms are currently being set for corruption offences, which often approach the maximum possible terms stipulated by the sanctions of the articles.

Albert Haleyan noted that it would be extremely difficult to find grounds for a significant mitigation of the sentence in this case. The most likely scenario is that the sentence will remain in force, possibly with minor adjustments in terms of additional punishments.