Financial intelligence explained the inclusion of Akunin in the list of extremists

Rosfinmonitoring does not make independent decisions on expanding the list of persons involved in terrorist or extremist activities; the agency only automatically executes decisions of investigative bodies or courts, German Neglyad, deputy head of the financial intelligence service, told RBC.

On December 18, the EU imposed sanctions on Rosfinmonitoring and its head Yuri Chikhanchin. The justification stated that financial intelligence consistently includes in the list of persons involved in extremism and terrorism, citizens and organizations that are critical “towards the Kremlin,” including journalists and Western social networks. The sanctions were introduced on the same day that the service added writer Boris Akunin to the register (listed under his real name - Grigory Chkhartishvili). Later, the Investigative Committee announced the initiation of a criminal case against Boris Akunin under two articles: justification of terrorism (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) and public dissemination of “fakes” about the Russian army (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code).

“We form this list on the basis of procedural decisions made by investigative or judicial authorities. You can open the law , everything is written there: the grounds for inclusion, everything point by point, the grounds for exclusion and the departments that make these decisions. They simply send us a copy of this decision, and we, based on, say, confirmation of the initiation of a criminal case and the prosecution of a person as an accused - for example, under an extremist article - add it to the consolidated list. We cannot help but add it, we cannot add it ourselves, we are simply creating the list in accordance with the law,” emphasized the deputy head of Rosfinmonitoring. According to him, the current mechanism is “absolutely legal and transparent.”

FATF (Financial Action Task Force) in 2019 studied how Rosfinmonitoring creates a list of extremists and terrorists, and “no questions arose,” Neglyad said. The introduction of European sanctions against Russian financial intelligence is “an absolutely political decision, not related to the professional work of the department,” he emphasized.

“And I, too, at one time read “Fandorin” (a series of books by Akunin about the adventures of Erast Fandorin. -). But this does not mean anything - the law is harsh, but it is the law, as the ancients said. If he is a good writer and journalist, this does not mean that if such a person commits a crime, he should be exempt from responsibility,” Neglyad noted.

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The inclusion of a citizen in the Rosfinmonitoring list means an almost complete cutoff of funding: those on the list have their bank accounts and cards blocked. Nevertheless, there are payments that the writer can continue to receive in Russia, Neglyad added: “There is a list of humanitarian payments that the person on the list continues to receive or make. Firstly, these are all the funds that the person involved officially earns. Through additional verification, he can receive them. Secondly, these are payments for the obligations of this person that arose before he was included in the list. That is, there are exceptions, all of them are aimed at humanitarian purposes.”

According to the law, we are talking about an amount of up to 10 thousand rubles. per month for the person on the list and for each of his family members.

Why did they open a case against Akunin?

Pranksters Vovan (Vladimir Kuznetsov) and Lexus (Alexey Stolyarov) published recordings of two conversations with the writer. On behalf of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and the country's ex-Minister of Culture Alexander Tkachenko, they asked Akunin questions about the military conflict in Ukraine , financial assistance to Kiev and attacks on targets in Russia. Akunin called the conversation a provocation. “To deceive a writer is no small achievement. In a conversation with clowns who pretended to be Ukrainians, I said the same thing that I say and write publicly,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.

On December 15, the AST publishing house announced that it would suspend the distribution of Akunin’s books. In addition, sales were suspended by the united retail chain of stores “Chitay-Gorod - Bukvoed” and the e-book store “Liters”, which are controlled by the president of the publishing group “Eksmo-AST” Oleg Novikov. The books were also removed from sale on the Wildberries marketplace, its press service told RBC.

On December 19, the Zakharov publishing house, which was the first to publish books from Boris Akunin’s series about Fandorin, reported that the Investigative Committee was conducting searches at the publishing house.