Stopped at the border: How Igor Sechin’s “clan” failed to take control of Russia’s Federal Customs Service

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The night search

On the night of Dec. 9, 2022, the Muryshovs were at their rent-free apartment on Leninsky Avenue in Moscow when the doorbell rang. Looking through the peephole, Major-General Dmitry Muryshov immediately recognized Yaroslav Starshinov, an officer of the FSB Department of Internal Security. After all, it hadn’t been long since the two men sat down for a drink at which Starshinov mentioned his special assignments to Syria for the agency's 2nd Service.

When he arrived at Muryshov’s door, Starshinov brought with him ten other officials, including some of the general's acquaintances: Roman Bazhenov, Denis Marachevsky, and Alexei Voronin of the Customs Central Office, and Viktor Korolev of the 7th Department of Directorate K of the FSB Economic Security Service. These men reported directly to the head of the K Directorate, Ivan Tkachev, who had previously led the FSB's 6th Service. Dubbed “Sechin's Special Forces,” they had taken part in high-profile arrests of ministers and governors.

General Muryshov often carried out joint anti-corruption operations with Directorate K at the customs sections of Moscow’s three major airports — Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Vnukovo. He had developed friendly relations with some of the officers who were suddenly on his doorstep.

“Here's the search warrant,” Starshinov held out the paper.

“Yaroslav, can I call General Bulavin?” Muryshov asked.

“Vladimir Ivanovich must be fast asleep by now.”

“I'll try him anyway,” Muryshov insisted.

“No,” Starshinov cut him off. “Hand over your and your wife's cell phones and give us your passwords or PIN codes.”

Everyone present realized that the main target of the operation was not General Muryshov, but his immediate superior: customs head Vladimir Bulavin. Bulavin would be 70 years old in two months, and according to Russia’s law on civilian public service, he was looking at mandatory retirement — although a special presidential decree could extend his mandate. Muryshov's arrest, which would undoubtedly be reported to Putin, extinguished any hope of such extension.

Muryshov was taken to the Investigative Committee, where he was told that in his absence, operatives had found $5,700 in his lobby. The day before, Directorate K officers detained Ilya Okorokov, an advisor to the head of Agromanagement LLC, who was Muryshov's informant. Okorokov's car contained notes previously marked by the FSB in the amount of about 1.4 million rubles (just over $17,000). The detainee said the money was intended for Muryshov, thereby laying the groundwork for his arrest.

As The Insider discovered, Oleg Gubaidulin — Bulavin’s deputy and a good friend of General Tkachev's — was also awake that night, anxious to learn the results of the search. Previously, Gubaidulin had been in charge of the 4th Service of the FSB's Internal Security Directorate and directly supervised customs. The “Sechin clan” had long planned to put Gubaidulin at the helm of the Federal Customs Service.

The “downed pilot” from Nizhny Novgorod

After learning about his subordinate's arrest, Vladimir Bulavin immediately contacted First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergey Kiriyenko, the unspoken handler of the so-called “Nizhny Novgorod clan.” Bulavin asked for a meeting with Putin, but Kiriyenko said the top boss was in Bishkek for a Supreme Eurasian Economic Council event and that Bulavin would have to wait for the president’s return. But the visit to the Kremlin never took place, and Putin himself later refused to intervene in the investigation. This episode earned Bulavin the nickname “downed pilot.”

Vladimir Bulavin is considered to be the informal leader of the so-called “Nizhny Novgorod clan.” From 1992 to 2006, he headed the FSB branch in the Nizhny Novgorod Region. Before becoming chief customs officer, he worked as deputy director of the FSB, presidential plenipotentiary envoy to the Northwestern Federal District, and first deputy secretary of the Security Council. In October 2022, two months before Muryshov's arrest, Bulavin met with Putin and reported on the success of the customs service in wartime, including the clearance of 6.5 billion rubles ($80.8 million) in parallel imports.

Bulavin expected to stay in Customs for another five years. He hoped to use this time to promote Muryshov to lieutenant general, a rank that would in theory make him eligible to head the Federal Customs Service.

Many of Muryshov's colleagues thought of him as Bulavin's protégé. Muryshov joined the FSB branch in the Nizhny Novgorod Region in 2001, and Bulavin, the regional chief at the time, took the history department graduate under his wing, ensuring Muryshov’s rapid rise from a rank-and-file officer to head of a department.

Muryshov's responsibilities included identifying possible foreign intelligence agents in the restricted-access town of Sarov, home to a nuclear center, along with overseeing customs at Nizhny Novgorod's Strigino airport and river port. After the expansion of the Volga Customs Directorate in 2010, he began supervising branches in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Perm, Kirov, Mari El, Chuvashia, and Samara.

The general's protégé was not affected by the purges in the FSB that were organized by General Oleg Khramov, who replaced Bulavin. An appointee of close Putin confidante Nikolai Patrushev, Khramov used arrests and prison sentences to clean up the department. Investigation Department chief Oleg Efremov, who was illegally placed in a prison cell on Khramov's orders, was tortured to death.

In 2018, Bulavin secured Muryshov's transfer to Moscow and appointed him first as his advisor and then as head of the Federal Customs Service's Anti-Corruption Department. Muryshov was a seconded employee of the FSB's T Directorate (transport counterintelligence) with authority to carry out operational and investigative activities in the department.

In a 2021 interview, he detailed how he caught bribe-takers and customs database sellers. Muryshov's replacement as deputy head of the Federal Customs Service was Oleg Gubaidulin — the eyes and ears of the “Sechin clan.”

The “Sechin clan”

The Insider's source, who previously served with Ivan Tkachev in the 6th Service and then in the K Directorate of the FSB's Economic Security Service, explains how high-ranking officials or generals are prosecuted: “Igor Ivanovich [Sechin] can simply say: ‘He's got some nerve. He's gotten arrogant.’ Ivan Ivanovich [Tkachev] immediately calls an investigation. Or else, Tkachev may receive information through agent channels that a certain high official is corrupt. Tkachev and his daddy run to Sechin, Sechin goes to Putin for advice, and then a decision is made. However, sometimes you have to wait for months for a response.”

This is how, in November 2016, General Tkachev's subordinates took into custody Alexei Ulyukayev, Minister of Economic Development, who had allegedly hinted to Sechin, the head of Rosneft, that he would like a $2 million bonus in exchange for a positive decision on the purchase of Bashneft. As a result, the minister was sentenced to eight years in a maximum security prison.

In July 2016, K Directorate officers had searched the mansion of Andrei Belyaninov, a good friend of Putin's from his KGB days. At the time, Belyaninov was the head of Russian customs, and footage of the shoe boxes full of dollars found in his home was broadcast on all TV channels.

Everyone expected to see the customs chief in handcuffs, then behind bars. However, the high-profile arrest never happened: Putin pretended that he had known nothing about Belyaninov's problems, expressed his displeasure about the ample coverage of the search, and ordered the law enforcement agencies to stand down. All of the seized valuables and dollars were returned to their owner. The Sechin clan pushed for General Nayil Mukhitov, ex-internal security officer of the FSB, to replace Belyaninov, but Putin appointed Vladimir Bulavin, a Nizhny Novgorod FSB officer whose candidacy was lobbied by another native of the city, Sergey Kiriyenko.

By the time Bulavin took over as head of the Federal Customs Service in the summer of 2016, the agency was controlled by associates of Belyaninov and foreign intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin. According to The Insider's source, who is privy to the inner workings of the customs agency, the FSB gave Bulavin a list of 60 employees to be replaced with former special services officers or their good friends. However, Bulavin did the exact opposite: he started by dismissing his ex-FSB deputies — Frants Avgustinovich, Vladimir Malinin, and Alexander Getman — and forced Tatiana Golendeeva, who was very close to the FSB headquarters, to retire. Such actions did not please General Tkachev, and the K Directorate began to dig into Bulavin and his entourage.

The Sechin clan strikes back

Bulavin's first warning came in December 2019 with the arrest of Alexander Kizlyk, the head of the customs investigation and inquiry department, and his deputy Alexei Serebro, who were both accused of receiving bribes in exchange for assisting in the smuggling of undeclared foreign currency. A search of Kizlyk's house yielded $600,000 in cash, a collection of exclusive watches, and 1 kg of gold bullion. Ultimately, Kizlyk was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Serebro received seven years.

Elena Yagodkina, head of the Main Department of Revenue and Tariff Regulation of the Federal Customs Service, also lost her position over accusations of abuse of power. Yagodkina remains under investigation.

Next up was General Muryshov's immediate subordinate, Maxim Rozsypalo, head of the anti-corruption service of the North-West Customs Department of the Federal Customs Service. Rozsypalo had served in foreign intelligence, spying in Scandinavia under the guise of a trade representative.

According to the investigation, Rozsypalo extorted bribes from furniture importers, levying $700,000 per truck. If they refused to pay, he threatened to tamper with the passage of their cargo across the border. The court sentenced Rozsypalo to eight years in a maximum-security prison.

During interrogations, Rozsypalo said that some of the bribes were passed on to the Federal Customs Service leadership, and he named Muryshov's confidential informant Ilya Okorokov and Vector Freight LLC director Dmitry Nesterenko as being among the intermediaries. Both came under scrutiny, and Okorokov was arrested with FSB-marked bills.

Eventually, General Muryshov and Nesterenko found themselves in the dock together, while the criminal case against Okorokov, who cooperated with the investigation, was separated into a different trial. Muryshov and Nesterenko spent more than two years under investigation, and although the evidence collected by the K Directorate was questionable, it proved compelling enough for the judge to sentence Muryshov and Nesterenko to ten and seven years in prison, respectively.

However, the Sechin clan nevertheless failed to take control of Russia’s customs department. As a replacement for Bulavin, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin appointed Valery Pikalev, who had served as head of security at Putin's Valdai residence and as vice-governor of St. Petersburg.

Putin's former security guard is a big fan of retro cars and motorcycles. In his garage, he keeps a 1970 Zhiguli and Ural Gear Up, along with Italian Diavel Carbon Red and British Triumph Thruxton motorcycles. Last year, Pikalev added a $43,700 Harley-Davidson Tri Glide Ultra to his collection. General Tkachev almost certainly keeps a close eye on Pikalev's hobbies.