How the food delivery app helped Russian women find torturers in the police station

A purge order from a Russian policeman was the clue that helped him uncover the true identity of a group of women terrorized by him. For the first time, a BBC investigation tells the story of how they managed to find it.

Women, mostly between the ages of 19 and 25, took part in a demonstration in Moscow (Russia) in March against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They were quickly surrounded by the police and placed in the back of a police van.

Most did not know each other, but the atmosphere was mild despite the conditions. They even created a Telegram group chat while taking the city to the Brateyevo police station.

But what happened next was much worse than they expected.

For the next six hours, they were subjected to verbal and physical abuse, which in some cases amounted to torture – one woman says she ran out of oxygen repeatedly when a plastic bag was placed on her head.

The harassment was committed by an unidentified plainclothes officer, who was tall, athletic, wearing a black polo-neck shirt. They nicknamed him “the man in black” in their group.

Two of the women, Marina and Alexandra, secretly recorded audio on their phones. In one, the police officer can be heard shouting about “total impunity”.

But if his aim was to silence them, he failed.

After her release, the women discussed in their Telegram group how they can find out who she is.

“If we just kept on living as if this never happened, [gravações] and shut up… they probably think they can do it again and go unpunished,” says Marina, a 22-year-old student.

His image remained in their memory, but they found no trace of him on their police website. And social media was a dead end as there was no one to investigate further. After searching for more than fifteen days, they were about to give up.

And then women made a breakthrough.

In late March, there was a massive data leak from popular Russian food delivery app Yandex Food. Then the group had an idea.

Last year, they began examining the data to see if there were any orders for delivery to the Brateyevo police station. Turns out it was made by nine different customers. Could one of them be “the man in black”?

Most Yandex data contained only names and a phone number. The women’s group used this to find various social media profiles for the police officers, but no photos looked like the attacker.

Finally, they came to one of the names on the list: Ivan. A popular Russian name, therefore one of the most difficult to identify. But Ivan’s phone number revealed a way online – six classified ads from the Russian commercial website Avito.ru. But most ads only gave them information they already knew – a name.

But one – for a Skoda Rapid car sold a 10-minute drive from the Brateyevo police station, released in 2018 – contained the full name of the dealer: Ivan Ryabov.

With a surname, they can look at a photo. And almost instantly, 19-year-old Anastasia found a familiar face.

“I started crying. I couldn’t believe it… I made it.”

He sent the photo to Marina, Alexandra, and others from the Telegram group, who acknowledged they had found the “man in black”.

They hope this will eventually spur the authorities to open a criminal investigation.

Audio recordings offer a chilling look at female abuse. Ryabov can be heard answering Marina’s questions or saying, “I’m taking off my boot and crushing your head with it.”

Marina says she was the target of Ryabov’s screams and kicks for 14 minutes – with a gun pointed at her face.

Anastasia, waiting outside, remembers hearing screams and bangs. When he too refused to participate in the interrogation, he said that Ryabov hit him on the head with a water bottle, poured the contents onto him, and then pulled a plastic bag over his soaking head and held it up to his nose. and mouth for 30-40 seconds at a time.

“You think to yourself – how much longer can I stand this?” says.

Alexandra, 26, also managed to record her abuse, and in her voice we hear her bragging about Ryabov’s total impunity. “You think we’re going to get in trouble for this? Putin told us to kill everybody. [do seu tipo]. This much! Putin is on our side!”

She then threatens to kill him and adds: “And then they’ll give me a bonus for that too.”

At least 11 of those detained say they were physically abused by the “man in black”.

When the women publicly released the audio recorded on their phones earlier this year, a Russian politician called for action – but the country’s Investigative Committee considered “insufficient evidence” to justify a criminal investigation into the case.

The women also wanted to know who had authority over Ryabov that day and why this person was not stopped.

Anastasia believes another man, whom women call the “beige man,” was responsible that night. Despite not being in room 103 where the women were terrorized, “all communication went through it,” she says.

One of the detainees secretly filmed him in the police station’s waiting room. But the shaky video wasn’t enough to keep up.

The BBC received an arrest report dated 6 March signed by Lieutenant Colonel AG Fedorinov, acting head of the station.

Then we found a local newspaper article from 2012 with a photo that spoke of Alexander Georgievich Fedorinov and fit his image.

But since the photo is 10 years old, the BBC double-checked it using facial recognition software and found images that matched the “man in beige” in the video linked to a social media account named Alexander Fedorinov. The same account was tagged in an online job posting at the Brateyevo police station.

The BBC presented to both Ryabov, Fedorinov and Russia’s Investigative Committee allegations that police officer Ivan Ryabov initiated and participated in the harassment of detainees, and that such abuses, in some cases, amounted to torture. There was no answer.

After discovering the identity of the attacker, Marina, Anastasia and Alexandra hope that some form of justice and accountability will be achieved.

“We want to make it possible for the law to affect them,” says Marina. No one can do this to another person, even if he is a civil servant,” he said.

– This text was published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-62832511.