Russian state media TASS: court arrests Life outlet journalist Tamerlan Bigayev in connection with case on extortion from Rostec chief

Moscow’s Tverskoy court has arrested journalist of the Russian media outlet Life, Tamerlan Bigayev, over charges of extortion from the CEO of Russia’s state-owned industrial conglomerate Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, state media TASS reports, citing a court representative.

“Bigayev was given a measure of restraint in the form of imprisonment until the end of December. He is suspected in relation to part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code of Russia (extortion committed for the purpose of obtaining property on a particularly large scale),” the court representative informed TASS.

Bigayev worked as a celebrity gossip journalist. Life.ru also claims that he was the writer and one of the administrators of the Tushite Svet (“Turn down the lights”) Telegram channel.

In October, a Moscow court arrested Kirill Sukhanov, commercial director for Russian media personality Ksenia Sobchak, and ex-chief editor of the Tatler magazine Arian Romanovsky over charges of extortion on an especially large scale.

The investigation claims that Sukhanov and Romanovsky extorted 11 million rubles (€176,000) from the CEO of Rostec Sergey Chemezov to delete certain posts published on the Telegram channel Tushite Svet. According to the case documents, the suit was filed by Chemezov and a person “close” to him, a man with the last name Boldykhayev.