This week the country was gripped by false anonymous called-in bomb threats. Law enforcement agencies must react to every such call. Interestingly, Russian special services report that most calls about bombs have been made from abroad. An investigation has been launched. Vitaly Karmazin has looked into the issue.
Explosion hazard management team, go! The fighters of Moscow National Guard Command are responding to a bomb hazard. The team consists of a sapper engineer, bomb technician, dog handler. Operating according to an algorithm, they put cordons on the scene and examine the building with dogs. If the call is not false, they involve special devices.
Radio jammer 'Pall' is installed to prevent an explosion by radio-controlled devices. A bomb technician in a protective suit 'Cupola' starts his work. Special services have worked like this all the week.
There have been an avalanche of calls about bombs in almost 30 Russian cities. It began with Omsk. Shopping centers, schools, city administration, markets, cinemas. Siberia and the Far East followed. Go to track 2 before the loco. All the tracks there are shut off. Bus stations and courts, then Moscow followed. Intelligence agencies checked out universities and shops, including MGIMO, GUM.
By the end of the week, a wave of calls had reached Kazan. Law enforcement agencies reacted promptly every time. None of the messages was confirmed. The investigators have already revealed the scheme of the crime and first suspects, a source in a law enforcement agency reported to RIA Novosti.
Immediate operational search and investigation show that anonymous calls were made by persons from abroad connected to ISIS, the international terrorist organization banned in Russia, and other organizations. 90% of calls came from abroad. Undoubtedly, they are all connected. The same recording was played for call recipients. An explosive has been planted in the building.
Evacuate people, call sappers. Is this a robot or a person? Most likely, this is a robot. As it's quite difficult for a person or even a group of people to make such a number of calls simultaneously. It is already known that the crime organizers and perpetrators were using encrypted correspondence and IP-telephony.
Secret messengers, allowing message encryption, have long been a constant channel for terrorists' communication, but Internet calls are something new. However complicated IP-telephony might seem, it is a fairly simple technology. It is legal, has long been used globally for communication not only via fixed telephones.
In fact, even a call from a cell is based on the same principles of digital communication between the subscribers. The company which develops Russian IP-platforms assures that hackers are certain to be involved. They could be in any country. Through a chain of dummy IP-addresses malefactors connected to a legal service provider and attacked from the source computer via this chain. I think no contract with a data center has been concluded so as not to leave any traces. They are likely to have connected to the Internet, from various places, maybe even in different parts of the world, and made these massive automated calls. IP-addresses, from which the calls were made, are blocked Experts are sure that the whole criminal chain will be revealed in the near future. All the moves are recorded. You can always address to the log files and find out who made this or that call or message. Difficulties may arise when it is necessary to apply abroad. Obviously, foreign companies aren't obliged to give such information. Hence interaction is possible, but is a bit difficult. Anyway, security services do interact at the state level. In practice, phone terrorists are always exposed and forced to reimburse the damage.
Alexei Sizikov, a 44-year-old electrician fond of the bottle, faced trial this week because of a call about mining the television center. On January 20 this year, after his call special teams came to Ostankino and VGTRK to find nothing.
Sizikov was detained an hour later. Now he says he has no money to pay the fine off. I'm hoping for parole. These cases cost millions. If it's about a station or airport, delayed flights are included.
If a big shopping mall is evacuated, its owners report the lost profits. As soon as the damage exceeds one million rubles the culprit faces up to 5 years of imprisonment. Lawmakers want to tighten the penalties so as the convicted under Article 207 could not get only a fine, but are sentenced to jail. Things happen. But you're going to jail, aren't you? — Aren't you afraid? — What can I do? Military student Amunbekov from Samara smiled until he heard the sentence: two years in prison and a fine of one million rubles, the sum lost by the mall, evacuated on New Year's Eve through Amunbekov's fault.
Almetyevsk resident Aleksandr Brazhnikov threatened the local hospital management with an explosion in one of the wards. A year in prison. The so-called telephone terrorists' hopes for new technologies are unlikely to be justified because almost 100% of such crimes in Russia are solved. Vitaly Karmazin, Ivan Litomin, Matvei Sidorov, Vladimir Kalsky, Lora Polovandova and Oleg Dubinin for Vesti — News of the Week.
