Investigator Oleg Silchenko

Position: Investigator of the Investigative Department of the Russian Interior Ministry
Promotion: Promoted from Major to Lt Colonel after the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky
Honors: Honored by the Russian Government as Best Investigator on the eve of the first anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s death in police custody
 
 
 
 
 
 

Officer Silchenko is the person directly in charge of the false arrest, detention and torture of Sergei Magnitsky. He also played the leading role in protecting the most important members of the Klyuev Organized Crime Group from being prosecuted for their parts in the $230 million theft from the Russian treasury.

Officer Silchenko attempted to silence Sergey Magnitsky by having him arrested, detained, and tortured. It was Officer Silchenko who signed the order to have Sergey Magnitsky arrested and detained under a false criminal case opened by Officer Karpov.

Officer Silchenko was personally responsible for creating the physically and psychologically torturous conditions of Sergey Magnitsky’s year long detention without trial. Officer Silchenko was responsible for transferring Magnitsky between numerous detention centers. He personally denied Sergei Magnitsky medical care as his health broke under his torturous conditions. Officer Silchenko was also responsible for systematically denying Sergei Magnitsky the opportunity to see or speak with his family members as “inexpedient”. Sergei Magnitsky was held for almost a year during which time he was never once allowed to speak to his children. Officer Silchenko ruled it was “inexpedient.”

Major Silchenko’s role in the cover-up did not end with the murder of Sergei Magnitsky. In fact, it expanded.

Officer Silchenko exonerated all tax and police officials implicated by Sergei Magnitsky in the $230 million theft and instead blamed it on low-level criminals and dead people.

First, Officer Silchenko blamed the entire $230 million theft on criminal Viktor Markelov who was convicted in 2009 in a collapsed hearing that heard no evidence with no questions asked about the stolen money.

Then he blamed it on Valery Kurochkin who also played a role in the theft but who had died in 2008.

Then he blamed a 53 year old security guard, Oktai Gasanov, as the mastermind of the crime.

Once it was exposed that Mr. Gasanov had died two months before the money was stolen from the treasury, Officer Silchenko arrested Vyacheslav Khlebnikov who had been a low-level participant in the theft and who was convicted in 2011 at a collapsed court hearing with no outside questions or evidence allowed.

To protect the officials and Klyuev, Silchenko’s investigation concluded that Klyuev had sold Universal Savings Bank just before the tax refunds. The buyer, a 55 year old clothing salesman, Mr. Semyon Korobeinikov could not be asked to verify if he really bought the bank because he had died falling off a balcony in 2008.

To explain why they weren’t looking for the stolen money, the Interior Ministry announced that the stolen money cannot be traced because the truck carrying all the records of Universal Savings Bank exploded in central Moscow.

Senior Officials Providing Protection for Officer Silchenko
Officer Silchenko’s actions in persecuting Sergei Magnitsky and covering up the government officials implicated in the $230 million theft, have been sanctioned at the highest levels of the Russian government: by Oleg Logunov, Deputy Chief of the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Department, and Viktor Grin, Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia.