Russia's Investigative Committee reportedly received a second claim of high-ranking FSB racketeering two months ago and has not responded

Alexander Shestun, the former government head for Moscow Oblast’s Serpukhovsky District, is in jail awaiting trial for embezzlement, bribery, and other charges. He had told journalists before his arrest that high-ranking officials in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and in Vladimir Putin’s administration had threatened to bring a criminal case against him. Now, Shestun’s press secretary, Vlada Rusina, has told journalists that the former district head submitted a racketeering complaint against an FSB general two months ago.

Rusina told RBC that Shestun formally accused Ivan Tkachev, who leads the FSB’s financial K Division, of threatening him and demanding money while he was in office. Because investigators treated the complaint as a citizen’s notice and not as notification of a crime, the legal response period for the message was 60 days, and that period has now passed. The Investigative Committee and the FSB have yet to confirm that an investigation of Shestun’s claims was initiated.

Shestun himself, who claims to have recorded conversations in which Tkachev threatened him, believes he was targeted for his support of protests against a local garbage storage facility and for his conflicts with Moscow Oblast governor Andrey Vorobyov. The accusations against FSB general Tkachev follow the arrest of FSB colonel Kirill Cherkalin, who worked under the general in the K Division. Cherkalin has been charged with taking at least $850,000 in bribes.