Part of the valuables seized during a search of Chekalina were never entered into the criminal case as evidence and were stored in violation of established procedure, resulting in their loss, Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk said. She did not name the investigator. A criminal case has been opened against the investigator on charges of abuse of office.
Kommersant reported that the investigator is Nikita Tulupov of the Moscow police department for the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative districts. According to the newspaper, he was detained and the Investigative Committee's main investigative department filed a request with the Basmanny District Court for his arrest for two months. The prosecutor's office disagreed, and the parties were given 72 hours to gather evidence. The court later told Kommersant that the investigation was seeking to place Tulupov under house arrest and that he has not been officially detained. He has been charged and does not admit guilt.
During the investigation into Chekalina's case, several dozen pieces of jewellery and watches by Cartier, Graff, Van Cleef & Arpels, Rolex, Chopard and other brands were seized from her, Meduza reported. Their total value was 14.4 million rubles. The blogger's lawyer, Viktor Dugin, told TASS that at the end of the investigation the defence asked for all the seized jewellery to be returned but was refused, even though the items are not material evidence and no protective measures were imposed on them.
According to Kommersant, the document on the seizure of Chekalina's property contained one list of jewellery, while the order appointing an expert valuation contained another. Fewer items were ultimately sent for examination than were seized during the search. The blogger's defence told investigators that jewellery worth more than 40 million rubles had gone missing, the outlet said. REN TV claims that Rolex watches and a Bulgari bracelet worth a total of 14.4 million rubles disappeared from Tulupov's service safe after the search. Volk cited the same sum.
In July, Chekalina was given a five-year suspended sentence on charges of conducting currency transactions using forged documents and fined 763.5 million rubles. According to investigators, the blogger and her ex-husband, Artyom Chekalin, illegally moved more than 251.6 million rubles out of Russia to the UAE to evade taxes. Chekalina was on Forbes' list of Russian bloggers with the highest incomes. Her ex-husband received seven years in a general-regime colony in the same case.