“Fontanka” reported on Prigozhin’s fake passports found

On Saturday afternoon, the St. Petersburg edition “Fontanka” published the news about the search of the alleged headquarters of the head of PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin, during which, as it was claimed, they found foreign passports with Prigozhin’s photo, but in the name of other persons. The news was subsequently deleted, for unknown reasons.

The searches took place against the backdrop of an armed demonstration by PMC “Wagner”, which ended on Saturday evening with some informal agreements between Prigozhin and the Russian authorities.

“In Prigozhin’s office, they found gold bars, a lot of white powder, bags of dollars, barrels and a doppelganger,” the Telegram channel “Fontanky” reported (the news is saved, for example, here). It was claimed that during the inspection of the premises of the hotel “Trezyny” in St. Petersburg, not only 4 billion rubles in cash were found, but also five kilograms of gold bars, six pistols and “five briquettes of white powder, one kilogram each.” It was also claimed that four passports were found “with a photograph of a person similar to Yevgeny Prigozhin, but with different names.” “Fontanka” suggested that these are documents for the doubles of the head of the “Concord” group of companies.

Among the found passports, photos of which were published by “Fontanka”, there is indeed a passport of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s doppelgänger, who visited Lithuania under his guise in 2020 (the real Prigozhin was already under EU sanctions by that time). However, in the second of the passports found, there is apparently a photo of Prigozhin himself, not a double. The passport is issued in the name of Vladimir Bobrov. A person with such data really exists, he is an engineer from Ostashkov, who ran many times in local elections from the Liberal Democratic Party. What connects him with Prigozhin is unclear.

Another found passport with Prigozhin’s photo is in the name of Dmitry Heyler. In 2021, Radio Liberty reported that the Sogaz clinic in St. Petersburg treated Vladimir Putin’s close associates. Gayler was also listed among the patients, opposite his last name in the client database was the mark “super VIP”. It can be assumed that the patient was in fact the head of PMC “Wagner”.

There were no official comments by law enforcement agencies about the search in Prigozhin’s office. On Saturday evening, the press secretary of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said that the criminal case against him would be closed – it is not clear on what grounds.