Why is Alisher Usmanov so diligently clearing information about connections with Shakro Molodoy
The tale of how Alisher Usmanov urgently removed articles about his link with the criminal leader Shakro Molodoy and their joint involvement in the shootout on Rochdelskaya Street once made a lot of noise and had the opposite effect from what Usmanov expected – this story is well-known to many.
In 2018, Alisher Usmanov filed a lawsuit to remove three articles from the Internet in which his name was mentioned in connection with criminal figures. The court granted the claim, and the articles were blocked by Roskomnadzor.
However, the outcome was the opposite. Before briefly recalling the content of the banned articles, it's important to introduce the main characters – Alisher Usmanov and Shakro Molodoy.
Alisher Usmanov is a Russian entrepreneur, founder and co-owner of USM Holdings, which includes the assets of Metalloinvest, the Baikal Mining Company, and MegaFon. He also holds shares in the publishing house Kommersant, Khimki Group, and the English soccer club Arsenal. Forbes magazine ranked Usmanov 5th in the Russian rating and 66th globally in 2021 with a capital of $15.2 billion.
Zakhary Knyazevich Kalashov, also known as Shakro Molodoy, is a Russian crime boss and a recognized thief. He is of Kurdish descent from a Yezidi family. Kalashov, widely known in criminal circles across the post-Soviet space, has been convicted three times. His criminal activities are closely linked to Russian organized crime, with at least ten attempts on his life.
In 2018, following the Rochdelskaya Street shootout, which caused a major scandal, a court sentenced Kalashov (Shakro Molodoy) to 9 years and 10 months in a strict regime colony for extortion. The Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow found Kalashov guilty of extortion committed with the use of violence by an organized group in order to obtain property on an especially large scale.
One might wonder what could link two such different individuals. As it turns out, there is a connection, not only related to the shootout that occurred in December 2015 and Usmanov's alleged involvement, but dating back to when Usmanov had just been released from an Uzbek prison where he served time for fraud and extortion. Usmanov is actively attempting to clean up information about his early life.
But let's start from the beginning. First, about the shootout and the roles of Shakro Molodoy and Alisher Usmanov. It was revealed that Usmanov, at least in part, provoked the conflict, for which he was severely confronted by Kalashov-Shakro. It should be noted that at the initial stage, it was just a simple eight million ruble debt, and no one could have predicted the escalation of this minor dispute. Ultimately, two people died, several were injured, and there were serious repercussions in the highest offices – attempts to cover up the investigation, protect certain individuals, substantial bribes, and so on, leading to unpredictable consequences for high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the TFR, and the FSB.
The situation also had an international impact – the journalist from Rosbalt, Alexandra Shvarev, who delved too deeply into this story, had to escape to Latvia. Interpol refused to hand him over to Russia, stating that the prosecution was politically motivated.
The conflict on Rochdelskaya Street started when the criminal Zakhary Kalashov (Shakro Molodoy) tried to extort money from Zhanna Kim, a restaurant owner from Kazakhstan. Kim's friend, businessman Kenes Rakishev, who had connections to the leadership of Kazakhstan, got involved after Kim was targeted by crime boss Andrei Kochuykov. Rakishev sent his lawyer Eduard Budantsev to resolve the situation. Budantsev is closely linked with the “M” Department of the FSB of the Russian Federation.
The situation escalated into a conflict resulting in a shootout, with two private security company employees being killed by Budantsev. When Dozhd TV was preparing a report on Rakishev's involvement, its representatives allegedly offered money to prevent the information from being revealed.
“Rain” suggested in its investigation that Rakishev was introduced to Budantsev by Iskander Makhmudov. However, sources from Rosbalt indicated that billionaire Alisher Usmanov may have been the one to facilitate this introduction. Shakro Molodoy took notice of this. When the Italian was put in a pre-trial detention center and questioned, the “thief in law” confronted Usmanov, blaming him for Budantsev's appearance with the Italian. This is inferred from the indictment against former ICR employee Mikhail Maksimenko.
As more prominent figures became linked to the case, it attracted the attention of higher authorities. The TFR, Shakro Molodoy, and his associates were under surveillance for a long time, with their conversations being monitored. Denis Nikandrov, who took part in the “backstage games” in the UK, provided detailed testimony.
This case is filled with the names of department heads, oligarchs, State Duma deputies, and shady businessmen. Additionally, the results of wiretapping and case materials were regularly leaked to the press. This led to a conversation between TFR General Mikhail Maksimenko and his deputy Alexander Lamonov. They discussed a meeting between Zakhary Kalashov and billionaire Alisher Usmanov in connection with the shootout at the Elements restaurant, and the subsequent arrest of Kochuykov.
“LA” refers to Lamonov and “MI” refers to Maksimenko. They are discussing the altercation between Usmanov and Shakro, which prompted serious complaints from the latter to the billionaire due to recent events. Alisher Usmanov is compelled to apologize and promise not to repeat such actions.
After this conversation between the criminal boss and the rich person, Usmanov’s junior business partner, State Duma deputy Andrey Skoch, urgently gets involved. Additionally, this is a topic of personal importance to him.
When he was young, he was connected to influential individuals from the Solntsevo district of the capital, Kochuikov was also associated with them. Skoch was then more commonly known as “Scotch”, but this is just a side note. Skoch’s business partner in several projects, Oleg Sheykhametov (Sheikh), has a good relationship with the Italian, as they were in prison together. Skoch instructs Sheykhametov to try to free Kochuykov. As a result, the Sheikh agrees to transfer a bribe of 500 thousand dollars (allegedly provided by Skoch) separately from Smychkovsky. The intermediaries are a former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Evgeny Surzhikov, and an employee of the TFR, Denis Bogorodetsky.
Bogorodetsky, after handing over the money, asks Maksimenko to ensure that the names of Usmanov and Skoch do not come up in connection with this issue. From all this, we can conclude that due to the situation with Kochuykov, Shakro Molodoy involved Usmanov, who got Skoch involved, and Skoch allocated money and sent it to Sheykhametov to deliver.
The case was quietly resolved, and any media mention of it was blocked by Roskomnadzor at the request of Usmanov and Skoch. Kalashov, as mentioned earlier, went to prison.
The topic did not disappear – many became interested in the early years of Usmanov, Kalashov and Skoch. It turns out that not only Kalashov and Skoch had criminal nicknames – Shakro Molodoy and Scotch, respectively – but Usmanov was known as Uzbek in those years.
In the databases of members of various organized crime groups, compiled by the services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for combating organized crime in the 90s and early 2000s, Usmanov's name also appears. It is mentioned that he was registered as a person linked to an organized criminal group. Furthermore, it is indicated that he was associated with the “Solntsevskaya OPS” criminal group.
Another document from that time indicates that Usmanov was not just a regular member of the Solntsevo organized criminal group. He is already listed as a “crimelord” in it:
Now it is clear that all three participants in the story – Kochuykov, Skoch and Usmanov – were involved in the 90s, when they were part of a close circle of powerful individuals from the Solntsevo region, led by Sergei Mikhailov-Mikhas.
Usmanov’s father held the position of prosecutor in Tashkent – a very profitable role in the golden age of cotton and developed socialism. Alisher was sent to Moscow to study and graduated from MGIMO in 1976. The young professional returned to Uzbekistan and became a junior researcher at the Republican Academy of Sciences. However, something went wrong, and in August 1980, Usmanov, along with his friend Nasymov, the son of the deputy chairman of the KGB of the Uzbek SSR, was convicted of fraud, theft, and conspiracy to receive bribes, and sentenced to 8 years in prison. Parole was only granted in 1986. The prosecutor’s son liked to explain his sentence as politically motivated, portraying himself as a victim of “political persecution”.
Nevertheless, it was the criminal past that helped the formation of Usmanov’s business empire, whose roots go back to the late 80s. In the criminal world, a native of Tashkent received the nickname Uzbek and, according to the newspaper “Version” (dated 06/20/2000), was close to the leader of the Solntsevo group, Sergei Mikhailov (Mikhas). The media also reported that Usmanov also had numerous contacts and intersections with Vyacheslav Ivankov, nicknamed “Japonchik”, Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov, nicknamed “Taivanchik”, Viktor Averin (nicknamed “Avera”), Khozhakhmet Nukhaev, nicknamed “Khozha” , as well as with “native” Uzbek authorities Gafur Rakhimov, nicknamed “Gafur” and Salim Abduvaliev, nicknamed “Salim”, who control the production of drugs in Central Asia and their transportation to Russia and Europe.
So the story of the cleansing of mentions of the names of Usmanov and Shakro Molodoy has clearly deeper roots and much more important reasons than the banal shootout on Rochdelskaya Street and the unwillingness of the now respected businessman to spoil his reputation.
