Untouchables

Overview 

The Untouchables are Russia’s new mafia, and part of its ruling class – the officials who abuse their authority to steal or earn bribes and who intimidate and kill the people who stand in their way and whom they are supposed to serve.  They are, by virtue of their official positions, untouchable because they are the same people citizens must appeal to for justice when they have been wronged. 

The 60 Untouchables featured on this site are officers of the Russian Interior Ministry and other state officials – who have been implicated in a theft of $230 million from the Russian people. They are the people who Sergei Magnitsky exposed in his testimonies to the Russian prosecution authorities. They are the officials who then falsely arrested Sergei Magnitsky and placed him in their custody, where they tortured and murdered him. 

These 60 Untouchables include officials from the Russian Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service (FSB), General Prosecutor’s Office, Federal Tax Service, Federal Prison Service and judges in the Russian court system. They are the individuals who used the powers given to them by the Russian state to organise and implement a corrupt scheme to rob Russian budget of $230 million, who released from responsibility the officials implicated by Sergei Magnitsky and other Hermitage lawyers in that scheme, and who pursued repressive criminal cases on false grounds to silence and intimidate Hermitage executives and lawyers who had reported corrupt officials to the authorities. 

In March 2010, the Moscow Helsinki Group, an independent Russian human rights organisation, has called upon Russian authorities to press charges against this group of Untouchables that was involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s murder for crimes under several articles of the Russian Criminal Code: 

–                          “Murder committed with special degree of brutality”; 

–                          “Murder committed to conceal other crimes”; 

–                          “Conduct of criminal prosecution of a knowingly innocent man”; 

–                          “Unlawful arrest and detention”; 

–                          “Forcing to give testimonies”; 

–                          “Torture.” 

See Moscow Helsinki Group criminal complaint translated in English 

However, no criminal case for the murder of Magnitsky has been opened. These Untouchables remain free and in positions of power. 

See the list of these 60 Untouchables announced by US Senator Cardin and what they did. 

Sign petition to President Medvedev to stop the Untouchables and bring them to justice here. 

Among the high-ranking Untouchables are: 

Alexei Anichin, Head of Investigative Committee of Interior Ministry

– Alexei Anichin, Head of the Investigative Committee of the Interior Ministry, responsible for the cover-up of Sergei Magnitsky’s testimony about the role of Interior Ministry officers in the $230 million tax rebate fraud. Anichin also directed the repressive criminal case based on false charges against Magnitsky; 

Victor Grin, Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia

– Victor Grin, Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia, responsible for absolving from criminal prosecution the officials implicated by Sergei Magnitsky in the highly sophisticated $230 million tax rebate fraud and instead charging only one small accomplice, a convicted killer and sawmill employee, for the entire fraud; 

Victor Voronin, Head of Dept. "K" of FSB

– Victor Voronin, Deputy Head of Economic Security Department of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), who authorised a criminal case based on false ground to enable the seizure of corporate documents of the Hermitage Fund’s Russian investment companies in order to steal these companies and $230 million paid by Hermitage Fund’s companies in taxes from the Russian people.