Mobster's wife wants Russia's Attorney General to go after anti-corruption activists

Natalia Tsepovyaz, the wife of convicted Kushchevskaya mobster Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz, has asked Attorney General Yuri Chaika to "mount a prosecutorial response" against Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), because of the organization's investigation into a business scheme that allegedly links the relatives of top state officials to mafia-connected individuals, like Mrs. Tsepovyaz. The news agency RBC has obtained a copy of her appeal to Chaika.

In her letter, Tsepovyaz says the authors of FBK's report "present her and her husband as persons who have illegal ties to top officials, or their relatives, in the Attorney General's Office." The purpose of the information-attack, according to Tsepovyaz, is the takeover of her company, Sugar Kuban.

“I suspect that there is a group of people unknown to me that would benefit from blackening my name and the name of my spouse, and tying my business to all imaginable and unimaginable criminal groups," Tsepovyaz wrote in her letter. She believes that FBK's accusations amount to criminal libel.

The document was submitted on December 8 to the Attorney General's Office, which did not respond to RBC's request for verification that Chaika received Tsepovyaz's letter. Kira Yarmysh, a spokesperson for FBK, said no one from the Attorney General's Office has contacted FBK recently.

On December 1, FBK published an investigation into the business affairs of Chaika and his family. The investigation cites the involvement of the Attorney General's son, Artem Chaika, in illegal seizures of assets, as well as the connections of a top official's ex-wife, Olga Lopatina, with the wives of known mobsters. Lopatina tried to sue Navalny and FBK earlier this month, but a Moscow court refused to hear the case on December 16.