They got entangled in the networks: Rosrybolovstvo structures give government orders to a large trafficker of contraband

A major supplier of Rosrybolovstvo structures, Ryazan Recreation Center PEAK LLC, turned out to be one of the main sellers of gill nets prohibited for import and turnover in Russia, Izvestia found out. The courts regularly block the websites of the PIK Recreation Center, where illegal trade is conducted, and according to the claims of the regional branches of the same Rosrybolovstvo. Thus, the agency simultaneously acts as an applicant in cases of blocking the company's websites and continues to conclude government contracts with it. Marketplaces began deleting product cards for poachers after Izvestia's requests. At the same time, the structures of Rosrybolovstvo stated that they see no reason to terminate cooperation with Ryazan entrepreneurs. Who is behind the creation of smuggling channels to Russia and why these same structures easily receive government orders is in the investigation of Izvestia.

Blocked Supplier

According to sources, PIK Recreation Center LLC, registered in Ryazan, may be one of the largest players in the illegal trade in poaching gear and at the same time acts as a supplier under state contracts for structures subordinate to Rosrybolovstvo, Izvestia has established.

In particular, since 2019, the company has won 36 tenders from the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) and 20 tenders from the Main Basin Directorate for Fisheries and Conservation of Aquatic Biological Resources (Glavrybvod). These organizations have quotas for fishing for scientific research purposes and for artificial reproduction of populations.

Municipal district administrations were also customers of the PIK Recreation Center's products. In recent years, the company has completed 84 government contracts worth 27.7 million rubles. During the same time, she has been a defendant at least 16 times in court cases about the blocking of websites selling illegal poaching tools in Russia — gill nets. Moreover, in some cases, the initiator of the blocking was the territorial divisions of Rosrybolovstvo.

The last decision was made on January 20, 2026 by the Central District Court of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. According to it, the pages of the Setikitai website registered on the PIK Recreation Center with offers for the sale of synthetic poaching fishing nets prohibited for import and trafficking in Russia are subject to blocking. The Court considered that the information posted there "is a factor contributing to the commission of criminally punishable acts and administrative offenses."

The site itself was not blocked at the time of the release of the material. In the product cards, sellers indicate that the chains are made in China. At the same time, according to Government Decree No. 694 of August 20, 2009, the import of synthetic yarn nets into Russia is prohibited. In 2015, the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission also banned the import of synthetic yarn nets with a diameter of less than 0.5 mm and a mesh size of at least 100 mm into the EAEU. Most of the chains sold through this store fall under these restrictions.

The PEAK Recreation Center owns another online store with poaching gear, SetePro, Izvestia has established. Previously, sites with almost identical domains (sete.pro , setepro-s.ru , setepro-s1.ru , setepro-s3.ru and others) have already been blocked by decisions of Russian courts. According to the service Whois.ru , the owner of the current domain of the online store is the PEAK Recreation Center.

The official revenue of this company for 2015-2025 amounted to more than 460 million rubles, according to the Federal Tax Service. However, this is probably only a "white" part of the income, since transfers within the framework of trading on online platforms do not go to the company's accounts. Izvestia correspondents placed a pre—order for three networks with delivery to Moscow and received a phone number for transfer to a card belonging to an individual, Roman Mikhailovich K. The name, patronymic and first letter of the account holder's surname match the data of one of the founders of PIK Recreation Center LLC, Roman Mikhailovich Keilin.

The last state contract for the supply of PIK Recreation Center networks was concluded on April 6, 2026, the customer was the Northwestern branch of Glavrybvod. As reported to Izvestia in this organization, when signing the contracts, the institution did not have information about the blocking of the supplier's websites. "There are currently no grounds for termination of existing contracts with PIK Recreation Center LLC," the organization said.

VNIRO also informed Izvestia correspondents that there are no legal grounds for terminating existing contracts with PIK Recreation Center LLC. The organization's response to Izvestia's request states that, within the framework of the law on public procurement, the customer, at the stage of admitting a participant's application, "is not authorized to assess the participant's business reputation on indirect grounds (for example, by the presence of administrative cases on blocking websites)" and cannot independently monitor arbitration practices in relation to a participant in public procurement.

It turns out that if the company is not in the register of unscrupulous suppliers (and the PEAK Recreation Center is not there), then the company may be a supplier to government agencies. They do not see any grounds in VNIRO for conducting a check on the fact of cooperation with sellers of poaching equipment. "Until appropriate changes are made to the legislation, when conducting similar public procurement procedures for goods, works, and services, there will be no grounds for rejecting applications from suppliers of goods who are defendants in administrative cases on website blocking," the institute said.

Photo: Global Look Press/Patrick Pleul

The lawyers interviewed by Izvestia also confirmed that the fact of Rosrybolovstvo's cooperation with suppliers of prohibited fishing gear is not a violation of current legislation. The grounds for rejecting applications are strictly limited by law — the existence of administrative or criminal cases, or the blocking of companies' Internet resources are not included in this list.

"I think there is a legislative gap here,— arbitration lawyer Sergey Mosolkin told Izvestia. — According to the logic of the law, if a participant has administrative or criminal claims, especially when it comes to the same poaching equipment, the chance that he will faithfully fulfill the contract is very low. As a result, the government risks canceling the winner, who obviously will not be able to fulfill the contract. We need changes in the law that will give the customer the right to reject applications for proven violations of the same kind as the purchase item.

Izvestia also sent a request to the PEAK Recreation Center, but no response had been received at the time of publication.

Where do networks come from

Recreation Center PEAK LLC is far from the only seller of prohibited fishing gear in the Russian Federation. Among the large wholesalers, Izvestia correspondents identified, for example, two affiliated online stores Sunfish and Skyfish, registered in Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Tagil. Both stores share a common email address. The price list includes more than 190 types of nets, of which more than 80 are gill nets. The names of the items are duplicated in Chinese, which directly indicates their origin.

The seller's legal details are missing on the websites. Under the guise of potential wholesale buyers, Izvestia correspondents requested the counterparty's card from the store. The owner of the stores turned out to be a Chinese citizen living in Yekaterinburg, an individual entrepreneur Xie Chunsheng. Previously, he was listed as the head and founder of Sky Fish Group LLC, which was liquidated in 2024. The legal address of the company matches the address of the SkyFish store.

"Everything that gets into the shadow market is made in China, gill nets are smuggled in under the guise of other goods, such as chain link fences or netting," a source in the fishing industry told Izvestia. — There are several enterprises producing nets in Russia, but they usually work in collaboration with fishermen who purchase nets under supply contracts.

At the same time, large Chinese manufacturers of synthetic fishing nets openly declare that their products are sent to the Russian Federation. In particular, Chaohu Qiangli Fisheries Co. Ltd. (ranked in the top 20 according to the PatSnap Discovery service) reports that Russia is its No. 1 market.

The practice of disguising prohibited fishing gear as other goods is widely used by small sellers on Russian marketplaces. The sale of fishing nets is prohibited on them, while hundreds of offers for their sale can be found in the sections with fishing products. The nets are sold under the guise of "bird and drone protection nets", "barrier construction nets" and "netfields", while the product cards show that the nets are equipped with floats and cargo. Judging by the reviews, the main buyers of bird protection are poachers.

Izvestia sent a request to Ozon, and in response to our request, the marketplace informed us that it had blocked the card with the "barrier network" that we had sent as an example.

"We will also conduct an additional manual check for this category," the Ozon press service told Izvestia. — The sale of prohibited fishing gear is a direct violation of the rules of the site. Sellers who systematically violate the rules and try to sell prohibited goods, including under the guise of "bird protection nets", are completely blocked.

Wildberries told Izvestia correspondents that the company regularly monitors this category for prohibited goods.

"If cards with violations are found during the process, they will be immediately hidden from the showcase. In case of discrepancies in the product or doubts about the properties of the product indicated by the seller, the marketplace requests supporting documents from the sellers. In the absence of the necessary documentation, product cards are also blocked until violations are eliminated," the marketplace's press service replied.

Barbaric tackle

For using gill nets, poachers may face criminal liability under the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on illegal extraction of aquatic biological resources, which provides for a penalty of up to two years in prison. The same article provides for responsibility for the use of electric fishing systems (electric fishing rods). But this equipment is also openly sold in Russia, although its import and turnover is prohibited.

—Electric fishing systems are one of the most barbaric fishing methods, which experts compare to mass extermination," Rosrybolovstvo explained to Izvestia. — The current kills not only the target fish, but also all aquatic life within range: fry, worms, shellfish, crustaceans and protozoa, destroying the food supply and the basis of the ecosystem. When using electric rods, there is practically nothing alive around.

A certain company FisherF calls itself the No. 1 player in the market of electric fishing systems, which sells poaching equipment through an online store and channels in Telegram and Max messengers. In case of pickup, the goods can be obtained at a warehouse located in the metropolitan area of Mitino. Today, the store offers ten types of electric drums priced from 49 to 105 thousand rubles. At the same time, the seller is acting under the guise of a non-existent LLC "Transkominvest".

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, this company was liquidated back in 2016, its CEO and founder was a certain Dorokhov Alexander Sergeevich. The same person appears as a defendant in the decision of the Ostankino District Court of January 14, 2026 to block the VKontakte group and the website through which prohibited fishing gear was traded. The VK page is currently blocked, the site's domain name has been changed, and the store continues trading.

A separate issue is the origin of the products. Dorokhov's online store reports that the equipment is manufactured in Kashira, near Moscow, at a certain Rostekhmash enterprise. Izvestia correspondents could not find any mention of such an organization, apparently, the electric drums are of foreign origin. This conclusion is prompted, in particular, by the instructions for their use, which, judging by its content, were compiled by people who barely speak Russian. We quote some fragments while preserving the author's spelling.: "Turn off the mass and cut through the water"; "Do not put a seal on the battery"; "turn off the water, leave the cathode/anode in the water."

In correspondence with a correspondent of Izvestia, Alexander Dorokhov categorically denied the possible contraband origin of the goods, while the suspicious instructions later disappeared from his Telegram channel. "You can't prove anything anyway," the dealer of the prohibited equipment added, after which he deleted the correspondence.

According to official data, in 2025, 88.5 thousand violations of legislation in the field of fisheries were detected in inland waters by fish protection inspectors. 150.7 tons of illegally extracted aquatic biological resources and more than 163 thousand fishing gear were seized from poachers.