The detective leading the case against Russia's top anti-corruption activists has a history of controversial investigations

The detective heading the criminal case against Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation is reportedly a major crimes investigator with a controversial record: Colonel Alexander Lavrov also supervised the embezzlement probe into stage and film director Kirill Serebrennikov, and participated in the bribery case against former Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh. 

Investigators opened a criminal case against staff at the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) on August 3, as police arrested more than 1,000 demonstrators in Moscow at an unpermitted protest. Officials initially accused FBK workers of laundering roughly 1 billion rubles ($15.3 million), but the Investigative Committee later lowered this sum of money to 75 million rubles ($1.2 million).

On August 8, state investigators raided the homes of FBK staff and searched the organization’s office in Moscow, freezing more than 100 bank accounts belonging to individuals and legal entities with ties to the foundation.