November 26, 2025 • 30 mins
Russian financier Georgy Chibisov is partying on a yacht on the Moscow River. At some point in the night he steps out for a breather. It’s the last one he’ll ever take. Georgy falls into the water and drowns. But did he really fall, or was he pushed?
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Something strange is going on. Another member of the Russian
elite has been found dead. Reports suggest that he fell
out of a window, poisoned with mushrooms, died of heart failure,
died of carbonnoxide poisoning. How comesy are they? Dozens of
Russian oligachs, politically motivated millionaires have died in the space
(00:23):
for three years, most of them in suspicious circumstances. Many
have hidden links to the Kremlin. This is sad Oligach
Season two, an ongoing investigation into these recently dead of
Russian power brokers. Sad Oligach is created by me jake
Hanrahan and my Ukrainian colleague Sergey Slipchenkov. This is a
(00:48):
H eleven studio and Coolso Media production. July twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four, Russian financier Georgi Chibisov is getting ready
(01:13):
for a party on his luxury yacht. At forty four
years old, He's done a right for himself, to say
the least. He works as the marketing director of the
Moscow Stock Exchange. He's been working abroad recently, though mostly
in London. He's only been back in Russia for a month.
A man in Georgie's position with his money is likely
(01:37):
to be riding the seas on a Sunseeker, a very
common yacht amongst the Russian upper class. The Sunseeker is
a British made luxury motor powered yacht. The design is streamlined, pointy,
almost sportslike hard edges smooth. It's thirty meters long and
(01:57):
has a top speed of around thirty knots. There are
five cabins, a master suite and room for up to
five crew members. The main deck has a whole entrance lobby,
a luxury bar and dining for up to eight people.
These yachts have more than an average person has in
their home. Very posh, very elite. On this night, Georgie
(02:23):
Chibasov is feeling himself. Of course, he's hosting a party
on his own yacht. It bobs up and down gently
in the Mosque for River. This river flows through the
Moscow province and part of the Smolensko Blast in the
west of the country. It's an important source of Moscow's
(02:45):
water supply. The yacht is docked in the river for
a while. After Georgie's recent holidays here, there, and everywhere,
Georgie's friends and associates get the party started on the yacht.
(03:07):
There are dozens of people on board. There's music, dancing,
alcohol seen as there's people from the banking world on board.
There's also almost definitely cocaine. In the eighties, a report
written off the back of a drug enforcement operation in
the US cited that roughly ninety percent of people working
(03:31):
in the financial district used cocaine. Russia is not much different.
Little has changed since the eighties. The party is in
full swing. It's dark at the harbor, but the yacht
(03:52):
glows like a night light on the river. It's a
bachelor party, probably hopefully for one of Georgie's friends, as
he himself is married. At some point in the night,
Georgie is separated from the crowd on this boat full
of partygoers. He wanders out into the darkness, maybe for
(04:13):
a cigarette, who knows. At some point, somehow he falls
straight off the side of his yacht and plunges into
the dark water below. It's not a huge drop, maybe
six or seven meters about twenty three feet. Impact with
(04:34):
the water from that height would sting a lot, but
it's highly unlikely you die from that alone. Presumably though
Georgie had been drinking at the party, perhaps even drunk,
and the body is filled up with too much alcohol.
The body doesn't operate properly. It's called motor incoordination, also
(04:57):
known as being pissed drunk, the limbs don't do what
the brain wants. If you've ever drank too much, you'll
know the deal. Georgie is now up to his neck
in dark water in the middle of the night, having
drank and partied for hours. He's fully clothed, shoes on,
(05:21):
kicks in the water, calls for help. The music is playing.
No one hears. He struggles, tries to swim. He's drank
too much, though Georgie goes under. The more he kicks
and fights it, the faster he sinks. He's drowning. Water
fills his lungs as he can hold his breath not more.
(05:44):
Before long he needs a watery end, dead, drowned beside
his own yachts. After an hour or so, people begin
to notice Georgie's absence. Where is he? But to this
point the people panic. They search for Georgie. They call
(06:04):
out his name, they called his phone. Nothing, They can't
find him because, of course, he's at the bottom of
the river. Despite the panic, for some reason, the friends
then don't do much at all. The police are only
alerted by Georgie's wife several hours later when she gets
(06:27):
worried that she hasn't heard from him. Of course, she
can't get hold of him. A day later, this corpse
is dredged from the mosque of the river. Following that
the trail goes completely cold. No update in over a year.
Of course, according to authorities, it was just a random tragedy,
(06:49):
a simple accidental death. Apparently, well, that was just story one.
There were very few details on this case. And yet
somehow all the official stories we've found, in both Russian
(07:10):
and in English all contradict each other to some degree.
That is, the small amount of information in each press
release on this varies to the point of there being
three different versions of that faithful day when Georgie drowned
in the Mosqueva. Story two is quite similar, but it
(07:30):
differs in that it says Georgie was out all night
partying elsewhere, possibly in the city or at a friend's house.
According to the alternative information, the yacht wasn't actually Georgie's either,
it was someone else's. The way he died, though, is
much the same. He wandered off from the main crowd
(07:51):
whilst on the yacht and then fell into the water.
This version, however, says that the worried friends who went
looking for him are the ones who called the police,
not Georgie's wife. She was alerted later. Then there's story three.
This one is quite different. In this third version of events,
(08:15):
Georgie was not on a yacht specifically, It was apparently
on a quote ship whilst on holiday. Now I took
this to mean a cruise ship, and if you fall
off of a cruise ship, you're looking at a considerably
higher drop than if you fell from a yacht. The
story doesn't actually say anything about which ship, where it
(08:38):
was going, where it had come from, and what happened
when they found out a holidaymaker had fallen off of it.
Either way, for the sake of argument, let's just presume
it was an averaged sized cruise ship. It would have
been around one thousand feet long, with about fifteen decks
and space for roughly three thousand passengers. If you fall
(09:01):
from the main deck of a cruise ship, even an
average size one, you're looking at a one hundred feet
drop till you hit the water. You'd probably die on impact.
From this height, the body falls at around fifty miles
an hour. When you hit the water's surface, you might
(09:22):
as well be hitting concrete. The speed and impact are
likely going to knock you out and then of course
you drown. If Georgie was on a cruise ship, he
had no hope whatsoever when he fell. According to this
series of events, he didn't just slip off of the
edge dock. He was apparently messing around on a diving platform.
(09:47):
Now this struck me, so I had to look around,
and it turns out you cannot actually dock a proper
cruise ship in the Moskva River. It's not deep enough
and several places it's far too narrow. Okay, all right,
now it's time for a quick adbreak, all right, Not
(10:15):
for that, now back to the shore. Still though, I
wanted to know where this extra diving platform information comes from,
and it seems to be from the Russian news outlet
mk U. This is a Moscow based newspaper with a
(10:38):
circulation of around one million. It's been going it since
nineteen nineteen and is known for its political and societal
commentary surprise. It's pro Kremlin pro putin and is owned
by a man named Pavel Gusev. Gusev has strong ties
(10:59):
to the Kremlin. He's been a member of the Presidential
Council for Civil Society and Human Rights of the Russian Federation.
People appointed to this position on this board are picked
specifically by Putin himself. Anyway, Pavel Gusev's MKRU says that
(11:21):
quote one of the vacationers, Georgie, neglected safety rules and apparently,
according to Newsweek quote, tried to use the diving platform
alone before falling into the water. No passengers saw what
happen to Chibisov, as no staff for nearby and the
captain was driving the yacht. Convenient Emergency services were alerted
(11:45):
on July twenty seventh to a criminal case of operation
of water transport. The Western Interregional Investigative Department for Transport
currently investigating the situation as a potential death by negligence
through operation of a water transport, which carries a maximum
penalty of five years imprisonment. Ends quote. Now the ship
(12:11):
is identified as a yacht, but in this version the
yacht seems to be one that gives trips up and
down the river at night so people can party. Every
big city with a river has these. You pay your money,
you jump on board the yacht, sales on a circuit,
you have fun. Personally, I've never been on one. I
(12:31):
have been invited, but to me it sounded like the
worst thing on earth. The only detail in this third story,
which is becoming an increasingly confusion amalgamation of sources I
know that I find new and noteworthy, is this from
Mkru quote. The top manager Georgie disappeared on the evening
(12:55):
of July twenty seventh after falling from a pleasure boat
while sailing along the Moscow River. According to relatives, he
wrote a message to his wife and never contacted her again.
Ends quote. By the way, a pleasure boat is not
as serious it sounds. It's just a name for the
party I explained a minute ago. We'll come back to
(13:16):
this quote about messaging his wife though in a bit so.
Why the varying series of different stories when it comes
to this case, well, it seems to be due to
Russian reporters copying and pasting together different bits of information
about the Georgie death from here, there and everywhere at
(13:37):
least that's what Sergei said he felt was happening when
he was reading it again. Though, this comes back to
the hurdles we keep facing with each case. There seems
to be a collective effort in Kremlin backed media to
report vaguely and contradictory when it comes to this series
of mysterious, wealthy Russian deaths. In the first series, each
(13:58):
case had a pretty extensive well of knowledge to tap.
There were crime scene photos, people we could contact, eyewitnesses,
quotes from the eyewitnesses, proper statements from the police, all
of that. But as we've seen with each case in
season two, there is allmost nothing. Now I'm not saying
(14:22):
that the Kremlin knows or cares what we're doing, but
it does seem to me as if there is a
concerted effort to make sure there is little information going
out there when it comes to the depth of rich
Russian power brokers. The information that does go out there
is very contradictory, and you could easily falsely report the
(14:42):
wrong situation. I think that is by design. So in
that case, which story about Georgi Chibasov is the real one? Well,
this is something we've tried to get to the bottom
of and as far as I can tell, kind of
all of them and also none of them. Let me explain.
(15:05):
So I think we need to jigsaw some of the
information together here to figure out the most realistic situation
before we move on to what happened. Remember this is
just my point of view, having spent years research and
all of this, but I could of course be wrong.
We have to take a little bit from story one,
(15:26):
a pinch of story two, and a dash of story three.
Here's what I think we get. Georgi Chibasov had only
been back in Russia for one month, if that, he'd
spent the past two years in London working away. No
doubt being home was a cause for extended celebration. On
(15:48):
the night of his death, he went to his friend's
bachelor party that was held on one of these pleasure boats.
These expensive parties on yachts that go up and down
the river so those who can afford it can feel special.
In the midst of this party, Georgie went out for
a sig and, whilst drunk, stumbled over the edge of
the railings and died in the river. The yacht carried
(16:12):
on its married way as he drowned to death. Now,
this could well just be an accident. Of all the
cases we've been looking at so far in season two,
this one is most likely a situation where the cigar
is just a cigar. Still, though, I have a hunch
(16:33):
that there's more to it. Something that keeps sticking in
my head is Mkiu's claim that Georgie tried to climb
up onto the diving platform. He apparently tried to do this,
presumably whilst drunk in the dark, on his own, whilst
everyone else partied inside the yacht as it moved along
(16:56):
the river. That alone seems a pretty weird thing to
do for a man of forty four years old. Also,
there's this constant claim that no one saw what happened
to Georgie. The captain was driving the yacht, the passengers
were partying, the staff were serving them. Then, how the
fuck does anybody know that Georgie climbed up onto a
(17:19):
diving platform and fell off. How cameras maybe, but why
hasn't anyone reported that? Where are the images? Why wouldn't
the newspaper mention security footage if there was some. There's
not even a single screenshot of Georgie on the deck
of any yacht anywhere. Something doesn't add up here. If
(17:43):
there was a motive for someone to kill Georgie, it
could have something to do with his background or his employment.
Let's talk to Surgery and see what he's found. So
I think really to kind of work out if there
might be some kind of other element to all of
this with Georgie, I think we need to look at
(18:04):
his background. I know, again he's another one who's a
bit of a ghost, but there's a few things out there,
whatever you managed to find.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, So I mean I'm basically looking at his background.
I guess you can say kind of like work history
his He doesn't have a LinkedIn or anything like that,
but a few articles kind of lining it out. So
basically nineteen ninety nine, it says he started in e commerce.
Sounds like he's kind of doing everything at that point.
He's like selling, he's finding places to actually buy the
stuff to sell, and he's selling it online. It sounds like,
(18:34):
I mean, it's nineteen ninety nine, so you know, e
commerce is kind of just starting. So that's what it
sounds like. Like it's a very like kind of doing things
on his own, figuring things out in the early two
thousands is when he joins more kind of bigger places,
so like there's like these are Russian places, so I
don't think like you'll know them, but like wiki Mart
and a bunch of other places that even I haven't
(18:56):
heard before, basically just online retailers. I guess you can
kind of think like Amazon kind of places. Maybe eBay.
I guess he's say hustling selling different things. Doesn't specify
like what exactly he's selling, but at some point, and
like late two thousands, he figures out that he likes marketing.
That's what he focuses on, and that's what he works on.
I didn't see him have any specific like degrees or anything.
(19:18):
It kind of sounds like he's more like self taught. Again,
it's very early Internet kind of getting his way around it.
It sounds like he's like an early adopter, you know,
doing e commerce in ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It was pure wild West back then. I remember even
reading in the newspaper as a kid at the time
about people that had made millions just on eBay. I
remember this one guy that basically bought a load of
very cheap camping gear from China through a logo on
some of it, and then was just selling on eBay
for like double the prize and just making a fortune.
(19:49):
That time was crazy, like people would just making money
left and right in the e commerce world. Okay, all right,
now it's time at break. Oh not for that, now
back to the shore.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, exactly. That's the thing that there is no degree
at that point, especially right for this kind of stuff.
It's like you said, as the world West that you're
just kind of figuring it out. And I'm sure at
that time, you know, having any kind of experience like
this would probably you know, get you a pretty good
job if you can help people figure this out. But yeah,
it sounds like, you know, he kind of figured his
own way out. He's making it pretty well. There's like
(20:33):
a whole list of companies that he worked at. It
sounds like he made his way up, like started as
a marketer and then eventually he was like leading departments,
kind of being director of this and that, communications marketing
stuff like that. Eventually he makes his way to a
UK based company it's called Wheelie. It's interesting because none
(20:53):
of the Russian articles, I would say like ninety percent
of them don't even mention him working here. Most of
them would say he was in the UK for the
past two years, which that would have been like so
he passed away in July twenty twenty four. Using their timeframe,
it's like twenty twenty two, twenty three years in the UK,
London specifically, And they don't don't say anything other than
(21:16):
he's kind of finishing his business or whatever, just very
vague stuff, which I found kind of interesting that they
don't really mention him working here. There was like one
article that just says, yeah, he was a marketer for Wheely.
That's kind of where I started. But the reason I
could confirm he was at Wheeley and the actual timeline,
which is he worked there from twenty twenty two until
(21:36):
May twenty twenty four, was from his own telegram page,
because other than that, I couldn't find it anywhere else.
He had his own telegram channel where he could say
was being a bit of like an influencer, kind of like, oh, guys,
here's what you do for marketing, like kind of posting
different strategies and goals and things he saw that were
interesting to him, and like different marketing campaigns he liked.
Kind of more like a LinkedIn influencer.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I guess yeah, that like like hustle bro business bro
vibe to it, right, Like he's kind of I mean
he's forty four. He's not exactly like old or anything yet,
but he was in that kind of he grew up
in that weird era. So yeah, I had a look
at the telegram and he's really like he's just trying
to be like that guy online, like hey, like stick
(22:20):
with me, I'll I'll tell you how to make money.
And if for anyone that doesn't know, like this, WHEELI
is a strange business. It's kind of like luxury chauffeurs,
like it's it's kind of it's called trusted chauffeurs for
discerning travelers. It's kind of like again, I think for
people maybe that perhaps don't have the money they want
(22:42):
people to think they have. That's the vibe. Yet, And
you can pay to basically be driven around or delivered
somewhere virus chauffeur in a very nice car that's not
actually yours. But again, it is interesting that apparently he
worked in London doing this, but there's not really any
trace of that. I actually reached out to them, got
absolutely nothing, And yeah, it's just like he was just
(23:05):
he was tying up business in London, like what like
very weird and then to go from that to come
to Russia for a month. But he works as the
marketing stock exchange in Moscow, Like I don't know, there's
it's quite there's quite a lot going on here.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, and he's not just coming in as a marketer.
From what I could tell, they don't men, they didn't
like not all sources mentioned his exact titles. You would
just say, yeah, like marketing at the stock exchange, but
multiple sources say director, so you know, not just not
just like some senior I don't know, associate or something like.
It sounds like he's kind of leading it and the
Moscow Stock Exchange, you know, pretty big deal. And yeah,
(23:44):
like like you said, he comes here in June, so
just a month before his death June twenty twenty four,
he comes to Moscow like he moves there because he
was he was permanently living in the UK for two years.
It wasn't like traveling back and forth or anything like that.
Like he he was. He was like there for two
years and he moves back, he moves back to Russia.
He's in Moscow for a month. I guess two months
(24:05):
because his death was closer to the end of July.
But yeah, so two months, and yeah, he passes away
and that that's pretty much it. Like there's not much
not much in between it like there's not much time
in between two for anything to happen.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Really, So, Georgie worked for a short time before his
death as the marketing director for the Moscow Stock Exchange,
colloquially known as MOX. This is a very big role
with a lot of responsibility, so I wondered could his
workplace shed some light on Georgie's fate. First, I wanted
(24:41):
to take a look at potential corruption within the marketing
department at MOX, specifically, as we know, whenever there's corruption
in Russia, there are soon bodies and what do you know,
the MOX marketing people have been up to know good.
There are several allegations that the press service at the
(25:02):
Stock Exchange have been selling desirable coverage to help businesses
with investments. This is illegal. There are whispers that they've
been taking bribes to change the coverage to assist in
a form of insider trading. Nancy Pelosi would absolutely love
this Allegedly, the corruption goes deeper. It's said that people
(25:29):
at the Moek's marketing department have been taking payment in
an agreement that they'll spin financial news to assist traders
who want to manipulate the market, specifically tamping down bad
news long enough to allow investors to get themselves out
of a bag hole. So I think you have to ask,
(25:49):
could Georgie have come into a corrupt department and been
taken out for refusing to play ball? Maybe, but honestly
I think it's unlikely. Two months is hardly enough time
for heavies to lean on a man who's just started
at his new role. What I find more interesting is
(26:09):
Georgie's time in London. He left Russia to go work
in the UK just around the time that Russia launched
the full scale invasion of Ukraine. As far as we
can see, Georgie never said anything publicly had on about
the war. What we did find was an indirect comment
about how it's affecting the markets. This was twenty four
(26:32):
hours before he died, so the last post was on
Friday July twenty sixth, or a day before he died,
two days before his body was found he's discussing the
interest rate increase by the Bank of Russia from sixteen
to eighteen percent, and he says here quote, you can
consider the news in one line, we are waiting for
(26:54):
new proposals for deposits from banks, and if you want
to take out a law or a mortgage, then my condolences.
So what's he what's he saying that. He's basically saying, like,
this is a bad mood for the customers.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, he's basically saying, as interest rate goes up, loans
are essentially more expensive for you, or you might just
not even get approved for it. He's basically saying like,
if you were looking to take out a loan, be
it for a car, you know, a house, whatever, maybe business,
he's basically saying good luck in a like a pessimistic way,
like it's not looking good for you. It's going to
be extremely expensive to the point of it might not
(27:28):
even be worth to take out this loan. Right, So
he's kind of saying, you know, the economy is not
looking good. He doesn't say like, oh, everything's horrible, but
the whole like my condolences, is very clearly saying like
you're kind of screwed. You know, you have news outlets
dedicated to just following the markets because they predict the
economy and stuff. So for the Mosco of Stock Exchange too,
(27:50):
you know, for the director of marketing to make those comments,
that's it's a pretty big deal, you know that. Imagine
if like prime minister or something, or a minister of
finance came out and was like, oh, you guys are fucked.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
In Russia Moscow specifically, is this enough to get perhaps
pushed off of a boat and drowned to death? Who knows,
but I think this, coupled with whatever Georgia Chibisov was
up to in London, could be was he maybe seen
as a traitor for leaving the country to work for
(28:23):
the enemy When Putin ultra nationalism is at an all
time high. Here's what Putin said on the sixteenth of
March twenty twenty two, when addressing Russians who'd left the
country or have voiced opposition against the war in Ukraine.
He said, quote, the Russian people will always be able
(28:45):
to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors, and will
simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally landed
in their mouths, spit them out on the pavement. End quote.
Remember there are no witnesses as to how Georgie died.
(29:07):
The captain of the boat didn't see, the passengers didn't see,
the staff didn't see. And yet still a newspaper close
to the Kremlin explained what happened with no evidence whatsoever,
no source, nothing. You've been listening to sad oligay At
(29:50):
season two, produced by H eleven Studios for Cool Zone Media. Writing, editing, producing,
concept and bording by myself, Jake Hanrahan. Research and reporting
by Sergei Slichenko, Me and Victim Mihail. Executive producing by
(30:11):
Sophie Lichtman. Music by Sam Black, artwork by George Zutpaul
Sound mixed by Splicing Block. See my other projects at
Hanrahan dot tv. Get me on social media at Jake
Underscore Hanrahan. That's h A N R A h A
(30:33):
n
Media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Something strange is going on. Another member of the Russian
elite has been found dead. Reports suggest that he fell
out of a window, poisoned with mushrooms, died of heart failure,
died of carbonnoxide poisoning. How comesy are they? Dozens of
Russian oligachs, politically motivated millionaires have died in the space
(00:23):
for three years, most of them in suspicious circumstances. Many
have hidden links to the Kremlin. This is sad Oligach
Season two, an ongoing investigation into these recently dead of
Russian power brokers. Sad Oligach is created by me jake
Hanrahan and my Ukrainian colleague Sergey Slipchenkov. This is a
(00:48):
H eleven studio and Coolso Media production. July twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four, Russian financier Georgi Chibisov is getting ready
(01:13):
for a party on his luxury yacht. At forty four
years old, He's done a right for himself, to say
the least. He works as the marketing director of the
Moscow Stock Exchange. He's been working abroad recently, though mostly
in London. He's only been back in Russia for a month.
A man in Georgie's position with his money is likely
(01:37):
to be riding the seas on a Sunseeker, a very
common yacht amongst the Russian upper class. The Sunseeker is
a British made luxury motor powered yacht. The design is streamlined, pointy,
almost sportslike hard edges smooth. It's thirty meters long and
(01:57):
has a top speed of around thirty knots. There are
five cabins, a master suite and room for up to
five crew members. The main deck has a whole entrance lobby,
a luxury bar and dining for up to eight people.
These yachts have more than an average person has in
their home. Very posh, very elite. On this night, Georgie
(02:23):
Chibasov is feeling himself. Of course, he's hosting a party
on his own yacht. It bobs up and down gently
in the Mosque for River. This river flows through the
Moscow province and part of the Smolensko Blast in the
west of the country. It's an important source of Moscow's
(02:45):
water supply. The yacht is docked in the river for
a while. After Georgie's recent holidays here, there, and everywhere,
Georgie's friends and associates get the party started on the yacht.
(03:07):
There are dozens of people on board. There's music, dancing,
alcohol seen as there's people from the banking world on board.
There's also almost definitely cocaine. In the eighties, a report
written off the back of a drug enforcement operation in
the US cited that roughly ninety percent of people working
(03:31):
in the financial district used cocaine. Russia is not much different.
Little has changed since the eighties. The party is in
full swing. It's dark at the harbor, but the yacht
(03:52):
glows like a night light on the river. It's a
bachelor party, probably hopefully for one of Georgie's friends, as
he himself is married. At some point in the night,
Georgie is separated from the crowd on this boat full
of partygoers. He wanders out into the darkness, maybe for
(04:13):
a cigarette, who knows. At some point, somehow he falls
straight off the side of his yacht and plunges into
the dark water below. It's not a huge drop, maybe
six or seven meters about twenty three feet. Impact with
(04:34):
the water from that height would sting a lot, but
it's highly unlikely you die from that alone. Presumably though
Georgie had been drinking at the party, perhaps even drunk,
and the body is filled up with too much alcohol.
The body doesn't operate properly. It's called motor incoordination, also
(04:57):
known as being pissed drunk, the limbs don't do what
the brain wants. If you've ever drank too much, you'll
know the deal. Georgie is now up to his neck
in dark water in the middle of the night, having
drank and partied for hours. He's fully clothed, shoes on,
(05:21):
kicks in the water, calls for help. The music is playing.
No one hears. He struggles, tries to swim. He's drank
too much, though Georgie goes under. The more he kicks
and fights it, the faster he sinks. He's drowning. Water
fills his lungs as he can hold his breath not more.
(05:44):
Before long he needs a watery end, dead, drowned beside
his own yachts. After an hour or so, people begin
to notice Georgie's absence. Where is he? But to this
point the people panic. They search for Georgie. They call
(06:04):
out his name, they called his phone. Nothing, They can't
find him because, of course, he's at the bottom of
the river. Despite the panic, for some reason, the friends
then don't do much at all. The police are only
alerted by Georgie's wife several hours later when she gets
(06:27):
worried that she hasn't heard from him. Of course, she
can't get hold of him. A day later, this corpse
is dredged from the mosque of the river. Following that
the trail goes completely cold. No update in over a year.
Of course, according to authorities, it was just a random tragedy,
(06:49):
a simple accidental death. Apparently, well, that was just story one.
There were very few details on this case. And yet
somehow all the official stories we've found, in both Russian
(07:10):
and in English all contradict each other to some degree.
That is, the small amount of information in each press
release on this varies to the point of there being
three different versions of that faithful day when Georgie drowned
in the Mosqueva. Story two is quite similar, but it
(07:30):
differs in that it says Georgie was out all night
partying elsewhere, possibly in the city or at a friend's house.
According to the alternative information, the yacht wasn't actually Georgie's either,
it was someone else's. The way he died, though, is
much the same. He wandered off from the main crowd
(07:51):
whilst on the yacht and then fell into the water.
This version, however, says that the worried friends who went
looking for him are the ones who called the police,
not Georgie's wife. She was alerted later. Then there's story three.
This one is quite different. In this third version of events,
(08:15):
Georgie was not on a yacht specifically, It was apparently
on a quote ship whilst on holiday. Now I took
this to mean a cruise ship, and if you fall
off of a cruise ship, you're looking at a considerably
higher drop than if you fell from a yacht. The
story doesn't actually say anything about which ship, where it
(08:38):
was going, where it had come from, and what happened
when they found out a holidaymaker had fallen off of it.
Either way, for the sake of argument, let's just presume
it was an averaged sized cruise ship. It would have
been around one thousand feet long, with about fifteen decks
and space for roughly three thousand passengers. If you fall
(09:01):
from the main deck of a cruise ship, even an
average size one, you're looking at a one hundred feet
drop till you hit the water. You'd probably die on impact.
From this height, the body falls at around fifty miles
an hour. When you hit the water's surface, you might
(09:22):
as well be hitting concrete. The speed and impact are
likely going to knock you out and then of course
you drown. If Georgie was on a cruise ship, he
had no hope whatsoever when he fell. According to this
series of events, he didn't just slip off of the
edge dock. He was apparently messing around on a diving platform.
(09:47):
Now this struck me, so I had to look around,
and it turns out you cannot actually dock a proper
cruise ship in the Moskva River. It's not deep enough
and several places it's far too narrow. Okay, all right,
now it's time for a quick adbreak, all right, Not
(10:15):
for that, now back to the shore. Still though, I
wanted to know where this extra diving platform information comes from,
and it seems to be from the Russian news outlet
mk U. This is a Moscow based newspaper with a
(10:38):
circulation of around one million. It's been going it since
nineteen nineteen and is known for its political and societal
commentary surprise. It's pro Kremlin pro putin and is owned
by a man named Pavel Gusev. Gusev has strong ties
(10:59):
to the Kremlin. He's been a member of the Presidential
Council for Civil Society and Human Rights of the Russian Federation.
People appointed to this position on this board are picked
specifically by Putin himself. Anyway, Pavel Gusev's MKRU says that
(11:21):
quote one of the vacationers, Georgie, neglected safety rules and apparently,
according to Newsweek quote, tried to use the diving platform
alone before falling into the water. No passengers saw what
happen to Chibisov, as no staff for nearby and the
captain was driving the yacht. Convenient Emergency services were alerted
(11:45):
on July twenty seventh to a criminal case of operation
of water transport. The Western Interregional Investigative Department for Transport
currently investigating the situation as a potential death by negligence
through operation of a water transport, which carries a maximum
penalty of five years imprisonment. Ends quote. Now the ship
(12:11):
is identified as a yacht, but in this version the
yacht seems to be one that gives trips up and
down the river at night so people can party. Every
big city with a river has these. You pay your money,
you jump on board the yacht, sales on a circuit,
you have fun. Personally, I've never been on one. I
(12:31):
have been invited, but to me it sounded like the
worst thing on earth. The only detail in this third story,
which is becoming an increasingly confusion amalgamation of sources I
know that I find new and noteworthy, is this from
Mkru quote. The top manager Georgie disappeared on the evening
(12:55):
of July twenty seventh after falling from a pleasure boat
while sailing along the Moscow River. According to relatives, he
wrote a message to his wife and never contacted her again.
Ends quote. By the way, a pleasure boat is not
as serious it sounds. It's just a name for the
party I explained a minute ago. We'll come back to
(13:16):
this quote about messaging his wife though in a bit so.
Why the varying series of different stories when it comes
to this case, well, it seems to be due to
Russian reporters copying and pasting together different bits of information
about the Georgie death from here, there and everywhere at
(13:37):
least that's what Sergei said he felt was happening when
he was reading it again. Though, this comes back to
the hurdles we keep facing with each case. There seems
to be a collective effort in Kremlin backed media to
report vaguely and contradictory when it comes to this series
of mysterious, wealthy Russian deaths. In the first series, each
(13:58):
case had a pretty extensive well of knowledge to tap.
There were crime scene photos, people we could contact, eyewitnesses,
quotes from the eyewitnesses, proper statements from the police, all
of that. But as we've seen with each case in
season two, there is allmost nothing. Now I'm not saying
(14:22):
that the Kremlin knows or cares what we're doing, but
it does seem to me as if there is a
concerted effort to make sure there is little information going
out there when it comes to the depth of rich
Russian power brokers. The information that does go out there
is very contradictory, and you could easily falsely report the
(14:42):
wrong situation. I think that is by design. So in
that case, which story about Georgi Chibasov is the real one? Well,
this is something we've tried to get to the bottom
of and as far as I can tell, kind of
all of them and also none of them. Let me explain.
(15:05):
So I think we need to jigsaw some of the
information together here to figure out the most realistic situation
before we move on to what happened. Remember this is
just my point of view, having spent years research and
all of this, but I could of course be wrong.
We have to take a little bit from story one,
(15:26):
a pinch of story two, and a dash of story three.
Here's what I think we get. Georgi Chibasov had only
been back in Russia for one month, if that, he'd
spent the past two years in London working away. No
doubt being home was a cause for extended celebration. On
(15:48):
the night of his death, he went to his friend's
bachelor party that was held on one of these pleasure boats.
These expensive parties on yachts that go up and down
the river so those who can afford it can feel special.
In the midst of this party, Georgie went out for
a sig and, whilst drunk, stumbled over the edge of
the railings and died in the river. The yacht carried
(16:12):
on its married way as he drowned to death. Now,
this could well just be an accident. Of all the
cases we've been looking at so far in season two,
this one is most likely a situation where the cigar
is just a cigar. Still, though, I have a hunch
(16:33):
that there's more to it. Something that keeps sticking in
my head is Mkiu's claim that Georgie tried to climb
up onto the diving platform. He apparently tried to do this,
presumably whilst drunk in the dark, on his own, whilst
everyone else partied inside the yacht as it moved along
(16:56):
the river. That alone seems a pretty weird thing to
do for a man of forty four years old. Also,
there's this constant claim that no one saw what happened
to Georgie. The captain was driving the yacht, the passengers
were partying, the staff were serving them. Then, how the
fuck does anybody know that Georgie climbed up onto a
(17:19):
diving platform and fell off. How cameras maybe, but why
hasn't anyone reported that? Where are the images? Why wouldn't
the newspaper mention security footage if there was some. There's
not even a single screenshot of Georgie on the deck
of any yacht anywhere. Something doesn't add up here. If
(17:43):
there was a motive for someone to kill Georgie, it
could have something to do with his background or his employment.
Let's talk to Surgery and see what he's found. So
I think really to kind of work out if there
might be some kind of other element to all of
this with Georgie, I think we need to look at
(18:04):
his background. I know, again he's another one who's a
bit of a ghost, but there's a few things out there,
whatever you managed to find.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, So I mean I'm basically looking at his background.
I guess you can say kind of like work history
his He doesn't have a LinkedIn or anything like that,
but a few articles kind of lining it out. So
basically nineteen ninety nine, it says he started in e commerce.
Sounds like he's kind of doing everything at that point.
He's like selling, he's finding places to actually buy the
stuff to sell, and he's selling it online. It sounds like,
(18:34):
I mean, it's nineteen ninety nine, so you know, e
commerce is kind of just starting. So that's what it
sounds like. Like it's a very like kind of doing things
on his own, figuring things out in the early two
thousands is when he joins more kind of bigger places,
so like there's like these are Russian places, so I
don't think like you'll know them, but like wiki Mart
and a bunch of other places that even I haven't
(18:56):
heard before, basically just online retailers. I guess you can
kind of think like Amazon kind of places. Maybe eBay.
I guess he's say hustling selling different things. Doesn't specify
like what exactly he's selling, but at some point, and
like late two thousands, he figures out that he likes marketing.
That's what he focuses on, and that's what he works on.
I didn't see him have any specific like degrees or anything.
(19:18):
It kind of sounds like he's more like self taught. Again,
it's very early Internet kind of getting his way around it.
It sounds like he's like an early adopter, you know,
doing e commerce in ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It was pure wild West back then. I remember even
reading in the newspaper as a kid at the time
about people that had made millions just on eBay. I
remember this one guy that basically bought a load of
very cheap camping gear from China through a logo on
some of it, and then was just selling on eBay
for like double the prize and just making a fortune.
(19:49):
That time was crazy, like people would just making money
left and right in the e commerce world. Okay, all right,
now it's time at break. Oh not for that, now
back to the shore.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, exactly. That's the thing that there is no degree
at that point, especially right for this kind of stuff.
It's like you said, as the world West that you're
just kind of figuring it out. And I'm sure at
that time, you know, having any kind of experience like
this would probably you know, get you a pretty good
job if you can help people figure this out. But yeah,
it sounds like, you know, he kind of figured his
own way out. He's making it pretty well. There's like
(20:33):
a whole list of companies that he worked at. It
sounds like he made his way up, like started as
a marketer and then eventually he was like leading departments,
kind of being director of this and that, communications marketing
stuff like that. Eventually he makes his way to a
UK based company it's called Wheelie. It's interesting because none
(20:53):
of the Russian articles, I would say like ninety percent
of them don't even mention him working here. Most of
them would say he was in the UK for the
past two years, which that would have been like so
he passed away in July twenty twenty four. Using their timeframe,
it's like twenty twenty two, twenty three years in the UK,
London specifically, And they don't don't say anything other than
(21:16):
he's kind of finishing his business or whatever, just very
vague stuff, which I found kind of interesting that they
don't really mention him working here. There was like one
article that just says, yeah, he was a marketer for Wheely.
That's kind of where I started. But the reason I
could confirm he was at Wheeley and the actual timeline,
which is he worked there from twenty twenty two until
(21:36):
May twenty twenty four, was from his own telegram page,
because other than that, I couldn't find it anywhere else.
He had his own telegram channel where he could say
was being a bit of like an influencer, kind of like, oh, guys,
here's what you do for marketing, like kind of posting
different strategies and goals and things he saw that were
interesting to him, and like different marketing campaigns he liked.
Kind of more like a LinkedIn influencer.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I guess yeah, that like like hustle bro business bro
vibe to it, right, Like he's kind of I mean
he's forty four. He's not exactly like old or anything yet,
but he was in that kind of he grew up
in that weird era. So yeah, I had a look
at the telegram and he's really like he's just trying
to be like that guy online, like hey, like stick
(22:20):
with me, I'll I'll tell you how to make money.
And if for anyone that doesn't know, like this, WHEELI
is a strange business. It's kind of like luxury chauffeurs,
like it's it's kind of it's called trusted chauffeurs for
discerning travelers. It's kind of like again, I think for
people maybe that perhaps don't have the money they want
(22:42):
people to think they have. That's the vibe. Yet, And
you can pay to basically be driven around or delivered
somewhere virus chauffeur in a very nice car that's not
actually yours. But again, it is interesting that apparently he
worked in London doing this, but there's not really any
trace of that. I actually reached out to them, got
absolutely nothing, And yeah, it's just like he was just
(23:05):
he was tying up business in London, like what like
very weird and then to go from that to come
to Russia for a month. But he works as the
marketing stock exchange in Moscow, Like I don't know, there's
it's quite there's quite a lot going on here.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, and he's not just coming in as a marketer.
From what I could tell, they don't men, they didn't
like not all sources mentioned his exact titles. You would
just say, yeah, like marketing at the stock exchange, but
multiple sources say director, so you know, not just not
just like some senior I don't know, associate or something like.
It sounds like he's kind of leading it and the
Moscow Stock Exchange, you know, pretty big deal. And yeah,
(23:44):
like like you said, he comes here in June, so
just a month before his death June twenty twenty four,
he comes to Moscow like he moves there because he
was he was permanently living in the UK for two years.
It wasn't like traveling back and forth or anything like that.
Like he he was. He was like there for two
years and he moves back, he moves back to Russia.
He's in Moscow for a month. I guess two months
(24:05):
because his death was closer to the end of July.
But yeah, so two months, and yeah, he passes away
and that that's pretty much it. Like there's not much
not much in between it like there's not much time
in between two for anything to happen.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Really, So, Georgie worked for a short time before his
death as the marketing director for the Moscow Stock Exchange,
colloquially known as MOX. This is a very big role
with a lot of responsibility, so I wondered could his
workplace shed some light on Georgie's fate. First, I wanted
(24:41):
to take a look at potential corruption within the marketing
department at MOX, specifically, as we know, whenever there's corruption
in Russia, there are soon bodies and what do you know,
the MOX marketing people have been up to know good.
There are several allegations that the press service at the
(25:02):
Stock Exchange have been selling desirable coverage to help businesses
with investments. This is illegal. There are whispers that they've
been taking bribes to change the coverage to assist in
a form of insider trading. Nancy Pelosi would absolutely love
this Allegedly, the corruption goes deeper. It's said that people
(25:29):
at the Moek's marketing department have been taking payment in
an agreement that they'll spin financial news to assist traders
who want to manipulate the market, specifically tamping down bad
news long enough to allow investors to get themselves out
of a bag hole. So I think you have to ask,
(25:49):
could Georgie have come into a corrupt department and been
taken out for refusing to play ball? Maybe, but honestly
I think it's unlikely. Two months is hardly enough time
for heavies to lean on a man who's just started
at his new role. What I find more interesting is
(26:09):
Georgie's time in London. He left Russia to go work
in the UK just around the time that Russia launched
the full scale invasion of Ukraine. As far as we
can see, Georgie never said anything publicly had on about
the war. What we did find was an indirect comment
about how it's affecting the markets. This was twenty four
(26:32):
hours before he died, so the last post was on
Friday July twenty sixth, or a day before he died,
two days before his body was found he's discussing the
interest rate increase by the Bank of Russia from sixteen
to eighteen percent, and he says here quote, you can
consider the news in one line, we are waiting for
(26:54):
new proposals for deposits from banks, and if you want
to take out a law or a mortgage, then my condolences.
So what's he what's he saying that. He's basically saying, like,
this is a bad mood for the customers.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, he's basically saying, as interest rate goes up, loans
are essentially more expensive for you, or you might just
not even get approved for it. He's basically saying like,
if you were looking to take out a loan, be
it for a car, you know, a house, whatever, maybe business,
he's basically saying good luck in a like a pessimistic way,
like it's not looking good for you. It's going to
be extremely expensive to the point of it might not
(27:28):
even be worth to take out this loan. Right, So
he's kind of saying, you know, the economy is not
looking good. He doesn't say like, oh, everything's horrible, but
the whole like my condolences, is very clearly saying like
you're kind of screwed. You know, you have news outlets
dedicated to just following the markets because they predict the
economy and stuff. So for the Mosco of Stock Exchange too,
(27:50):
you know, for the director of marketing to make those comments,
that's it's a pretty big deal, you know that. Imagine
if like prime minister or something, or a minister of
finance came out and was like, oh, you guys are fucked.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
In Russia Moscow specifically, is this enough to get perhaps
pushed off of a boat and drowned to death? Who knows,
but I think this, coupled with whatever Georgia Chibisov was
up to in London, could be was he maybe seen
as a traitor for leaving the country to work for
(28:23):
the enemy When Putin ultra nationalism is at an all
time high. Here's what Putin said on the sixteenth of
March twenty twenty two, when addressing Russians who'd left the
country or have voiced opposition against the war in Ukraine.
He said, quote, the Russian people will always be able
(28:45):
to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors, and will
simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally landed
in their mouths, spit them out on the pavement. End quote.
Remember there are no witnesses as to how Georgie died.
(29:07):
The captain of the boat didn't see, the passengers didn't see,
the staff didn't see. And yet still a newspaper close
to the Kremlin explained what happened with no evidence whatsoever,
no source, nothing. You've been listening to sad oligay At
(29:50):
season two, produced by H eleven Studios for Cool Zone Media. Writing, editing, producing,
concept and bording by myself, Jake Hanrahan. Research and reporting
by Sergei Slichenko, Me and Victim Mihail. Executive producing by
(30:11):
Sophie Lichtman. Music by Sam Black, artwork by George Zutpaul
Sound mixed by Splicing Block. See my other projects at
Hanrahan dot tv. Get me on social media at Jake
Underscore Hanrahan. That's h A N R A h A
(30:33):
n
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