Thread by @OCCRP

🚨 BREAKING: The Moscow apartment of Roman Anin, editor-in-chief of OCCRP member center @istories_media, is currently being raided by the FSB. /1

https://twitter.com/istories_media/status/1380538088775106567

@istories_media Roman’s colleagues are currently unable to reach him.

The last thing they heard from him, before he went silent, is that the FSB search may be related to a 2016 story he published in Novaya Gazeta, his previous employer. /2

@istories_media That story concerned Igor Sechin, a former deputy prime minister and now the head of the state-controlled oil giant Rosneft. It connected Sechin with an ultra-luxurious mega-yacht, the St. Princess Olga.

Here’s OCCRP’s English version of that story. 3/

occrp.org/en/investigati…

@istories_media It must have hit a nerve: Sechin subsequently sued Novaya Gazeta, arguing that he was not a public figure and had a right to privacy. He won the case, forcing Novaya Gazeta to add a rebuttal to the top of the page. 4/

@istories_media Roman is one of the top journalists in Russia, if not the world. He has led numerous ground-breaking investigations into organized crime and corruption in Putin’s Russia. He was a 2019 @JSKstanford fellow and won last year’s @ICFJ Trailblazer Award. 5/

@istories_media @JSKstanford @ICFJ Roman’s journalism has always focused on exposing corruption that harms Russian citizens. In this 2018 story, he showed how President Putin’s bodyguards appropriated land belonging to ordinary people, including WWII veterans. 6/
occrp.org/en/investigati…

@istories_media @JSKstanford @ICFJ And in this story — a finalist for @GIJN’s 2019 Global Shining Light Award — he exposed collusion between Russian law enforcement and a murderous criminal gang. 7/

occrp.org/en/investigati…

@istories_media @JSKstanford @ICFJ @gijn "Powerful people don't like to be held accountable," said OCCRP Publisher Drew Sullivan.

"OCCRP is watching the situation closely."

More as it develops. 8/8