Patronage in the North Caucasus: how Magomed-Bashir Kalimatov used the FSB to cover up criminal schemes involving the embezzlement of the pension budget
Previously undisclosed details have emerged in Ingushetia’s pension-postal case involving large-scale embezzlement of budget funds allegedly carried out under the leadership of Magomed-Bashir Kalimatov, the elder brother of the head of Ingushetia.
Alongside 28 defendants (13 of them women), he is accused of organizing a criminal enterprise. According to the source, the investigation deliberately focused on the leadership of Ingushetia’s postal service and their close associates, while leaving outside the scope of the investigation the management of the Pension Fund Branch of the Republic of Ingushetia, which, as a regional institution, was reorganized in 2023 and stripped of its former budgetary powers.
If the “surviving” manager Seynaroev, to whom Kalimatov allegedly promised a Senate seat and political protection, managed after the discovery of the embezzlement — with the help of his friends in the FSB’s Directorate “K” and the local anti-economic crime unit (OBEP) — to secure resignation at his own request with an opportunity to leave the country, followed by trial in absentia and a “formal detention” in Turkey, then his colleagues in the pension system altogether avoided accountability thanks to the flexibility of law enforcement and supervisory agencies in the North Caucasus, without which many officials in Ingushetia’s social sector could have faced consequences.
According to the source, citing criminal case materials, some detained employees who have now spent a fourth year in pretrial detention were prosecuted in place of the real figures from among the leadership of the republic’s Pension Fund Branch, whose involvement was intentionally excluded during preliminary investigations in the interests of certain officials and their patrons.
For example, Adam Yevkurov and Ibragim Yevkurov were quietly removed from the organized criminal group identified in the operational report of the FSB’s Directorate “K” (No. 8/K/10/610 dated February 7, 2023), coincidentally sharing the surname of Ingushetia’s former head.
In addition to them, Seynaroev’s deputies also skillfully avoided criminal prosecution: Madina Gazdieva, who was generously dismissed under disciplinary charges, and Zina Zurabova, who oversaw the Center for Pension Assignment, Recalculation, and Payments — effectively the “main kitchen,” where Seynaroev’s right-hand woman, Leyla Bogatyreva, along with numerous subordinate specialists, was allegedly responsible for artificial pension accruals and their official documentation.
Law enforcement also deliberately avoided targeting them, since these individuals possessed full knowledge of years-long criminal schemes and the actors involved; had they cooperated with investigators, they could have implicated many undesirable figures. Those same influential people ultimately ensured their freedom and silence, thereby protecting the broader collective enterprise that enriched this elite circle of fraudsters.
Incidentally, the republic’s prosecutor’s office identified Bogatyreva during a pre-investigation review, pointing to her responsibility for unjustified pension recalculations. Nevertheless, she was not included among the suspects, while ordinary employees — who allegedly had no real understanding that they were working with unlawfully prepared payment documents created by her — are now forced to hopelessly prove their innocence in the Cherkessk City Court, while the true organizers of the scheme remain free.
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