The Curious Case of Anton Cherepennikov: Yet Another Mysterious “Unsolved” Death in Putin’s Russia, writes Agnis Buda

It was evident that strange things were happening within IKS Holding, partly explained by the fact that in February 2023, both IKS Holding and the company Yadro fell under US sanctions.

Media reports indicated that compared to 2020, the value of Cherepennikov’s assets had plummeted so significantly by 2022 that it was theoretically possible to speak of his loss of control over the majority of companies. The mass departure of  Cherepennikov and funds from the assets raised many questions.

Citadel Corporation enters a phase of reorganization.

In one of its firstborns, the company Base Lab, the top manager was a founder until 2019 but then decided to transfer his shares into management. In 2022, Base Lab earned 3.3 billion rubles, with a net profit of 1.6 billion.

Despite Base Lab consistently bringing in high profits and no signs of trouble, it was decided in March 2023 to liquidate it as a separate legal entity and transfer all Base Lab affairs to Citadel Corporation. A similar situation unfolded in other structures, whose ideologist and founder was initially Cherepennikov.

In 2022, IKS Holding withdrew from being a co-founder of Citadel LLC, Unified Factor LLC, KNS Group LLC, Picta LLC, Yadro GC LLC, Kryptonite LLC, and Bureau 1440 LLC. In 2023, it ceased to be a shareholder of Garda Technologies LLC and Bastion LLC.

The story of Bureau 1440 resembles an extraordinary success story – in 2021, Bureau 1440 employed 43 people with an average salary of 480 thousand rubles.

However, the official financial results for 2022 were astonishing: the company’s revenue was only 0.83 million rubles, with a negative profit of 544.6 million rubles.

This resembled a roller coaster ride – dozens of changes were officially registered in the “biography” of the holding within just 2022.

For instance, on June 7, a new founder, HK IKS, appeared, with a charter capital of 999,999 rubles, accompanied by a change of legal address; on June 15, the company’s address moved to Michurinsky Prospekt in Moscow.

The next day, as well as on July 20, a change of registration number occurred; on July 22, another founder, X Management (contribution to the charter capital – 1 ruble), was added, simultaneously removing Alexey Khrenov from the list of founders.

On October 17, there was another change in the founder, with no detailed information available; on November 7, a surprising change was registered – the names “Holding ‘Intellectual Computer Systems'” and IKS Holding swapped places, along with a change in the main type of activity and the addition of several new types.

Anton Cherepennikov had a grand plan for the revival of the holding, and it looked promising.

Database records indicated that as of June 2022 – a year before his death – Cherepennikov was the founder and CEO of HK IKS, with a charter capital of 19.5 billion rubles, and the legal address was Michurinsky Prospekt, Moscow. It was also indicated that the legal predecessor of HK IKS was YuESM Telecom.

As a result of the asset transfer: IKS Holding, where Cherepennikov was the CEO, owned 98% of HK IKS and 2% belonged to the companies IKS Management. Cherepennikov was also the head of IKS Management until April 2022, and the founder until November 2022.

After his death, it was revealed that the former IKS Holding indeed came into the hands of Cherepennikov’s heirs – the asset transfer operation, which required the consent of many stakeholders, was successfully carried out.

Company Profile Determines Employee Selection

A former FSB employee lamented to one journalist that many of his former colleagues took jobs in companies owned by Cherepennikov, which are involved in the production of SORM (System for Operative Investigative Activities).

There are also highly influential former FSB employees within the holding.

Boris Miroshnikov

RBK reported that General Colonel Boris Miroshnikov works at Citadel.

In the 1990s he headed the Department of Computer and Information Security at the FSB, and later was the head of the “K” department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

This department deals with crimes in the field of information technology.

Boris Miroshnikov gained wide recognition due to a conflict with the founder of Euroset, Evgeny Chichvarkin.

The entrepreneur repeatedly accused Miroshnikov of organizing an attack on Euroset, as a result of which he was forced to sell his stake in the company and leave the country.

In 2019, the BBC reported that Citadel invested in a startup founded by Korolev, then a 23-year-old programmer – the son of the former head of the FSB’s Economic Security Service, now the First Deputy Director of the FSB, Sergey Korolev, who is behind high-profile anti-corruption cases.

The younger Korolev’s company, Bastion, specializes in so-called “white” or ethical hacking, i.e., testing vulnerabilities in the information systems of companies.

In simple terms, the business of Citadel Corporation revolves around unhindered and unpunished wiretapping of conversations, monitoring of correspondence, social media activity, and tracking of individuals’ movements.

Developing such a company requires individuals who have contacts with the leaders of most law enforcement agencies, individuals who would be part of a circle of people who are often admitted without a call. One of them has been heavily targeted by the press.

Perhaps, for pushing forward Cherepennikov’s products and controlling Citadel Corporation, Valery Bitaev found himself in this structure.

The Center Dossier website wrote that he “has access to high offices of the FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Prosecutor General’s Office, where he is received as the most esteemed guest.”

Among Bitaev’s clients, the Center Dossier also mentioned Vladimir Yevtushenkov and AFK Sistema.

Bitaev is referred to as a “solver.”

In Russian slang, this word denotes a person who works or has connections in a government institution and acts as an intermediary between high-ranking employees of this institution and bribe-givers, helping to solve the latter’s problems.

Bitaev is an extremely enigmatic figure with a very convoluted biography. From 1975 to 1993, he served in the army, participating in the little-known war in Angola; the next seven years of his biography remained in the shadows.

From 2010 to 2014, Bitaev held the position of deputy head of the administration of the Volgograd region. In 2016, he was appointed as an advisor to the CEO of the USM Group holding, and later became a co-owner of Citadel Corporation.

Bitaev spares no expense, enjoying his vacations in the most luxurious hotels in the UAE, with only the best cars at his disposal – Mercedes Maybach, Bentley Bentayga, and others. The picture is so sunny that the clouds simply invite themselves.

In early 2023, rumours circulated that Bitaev was having problems with law enforcement agencies – he was allegedly accused of working for Western special services.

It turned out that the Citadel’s equipment, which allows wiretapping of conversations and monitoring of correspondence, is almost unprotected from external interference: the “boxes” from the Citadel’s MFI Soft division, which supply information for SORM to providers, can be opened, and the data will go to interested parties.

Even a database of more than 9,000 addresses in Russia’s nuclear center – Sarov – was leaked to the internet. It was Bitaev who purchased imported software for these devices. He immediately ran into problems.

Simultaneously with the change of the occupant of the chair on Bolshaya Dimitrovka, where Yuri Chaika was replaced by Igor Krasnov from the Investigative Committee, episodes characterising Bitaev’s activities, as well as his client-patrons from among billionaires and FSB executives, began to pour out of the archives of the Investigative Committee.

As a result, several criminal cases involving Bitaev were initiated; dark clouds began to gather over his head.

Citadel is a huge corporation, its profit for 2022 alone amounted to 8.2 billion rubles.

In 2017, 75.85% of Citadel belonged to its founder Cherepennikov, and another 23% belonged to Bitaev.

However, on May 28, 2023, the structure of shares was clearly different, and a new legal entity was visible: LLC IKS Holding owned 62.63%, the closed-end mutual investment fund “Technological Reality” owned 25.1%, and Bitaev’s share decreased by more than half – to 10.77%.

Remarkably, as Bitaev’s share decreased, compromising material on him, as if by magic, began to disappear, and criminal cases either closed, or his name ceased to appear there.

The press interest in his personality sharply declined. Did someone start solving his problems for him?

From June 15 to July 15, 2021, exercises were conducted in Russia to isolate the Runet, i.e., disconnecting the Russian Internet from the global one.

Several months earlier, using the same equipment, Roskomnadzor began to slow down access to the social network Twitter. The company “Data – Center for Processing and Automation (DTSOA),” associated with Cherepennikov’s structures, participated in slowing down social networks and creating a “sovereign” version of the Runet.

This company was created for the implementation and integration of DPI solutions for the “sovereign Runet.”

Thanks to DPI technology, it became possible in Russia to slow down individual web pages and block media sites “MBKh Media” and “smart voting” (a strategy put forward by Alexei Navalny’s team) hiding from blocks using the Google appspot address loophole.