Russian spy detained in Colombia after Google Translate exposes alleged hit plot

Investigators describe Center 795 as the most secretive Russian intelligence unit to date, formed largely from elite officers of Russia’s GRU military intelligence and the FSB Special Purpose Center units Alpha and Vympel.

The Insider reported it was able to identify nearly all personnel assigned to Center 795, as well as its base, financial backers and the operations it conducts. Investigators decided to publish their findings after one of the unit’s key officers, Denis Alimov, was detained in February in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá.

Alimov, who allegedly organized assassinations and kidnappings abroad, is awaiting extradition to the United States at the request of federal prosecutors in New York. He is accused of organizing an attempted attack on two “critics of Putin’s regime” who had fled Russia.

According to the investigation, Center 795 was established after the start of the full-scale war in December 2022 and was almost fully staffed by June 2023. Journalists say the unit was created as an alternative to military unit 29155 — known for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and sabotage operations abroad — and assigned “ultra-secret missions.”

The unit’s chief reports directly to the chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, or to a deputy defense minister.

The Insider reports that Center 795 is based on the grounds of a training facility belonging to the Kalashnikov concern, part of the Rostec conglomerate controlled by Sergei Chemezov — a longtime friend and former KGB colleague of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Financing for the project also involves oligarch and Kalashnikov co-owner Andrey Bokarev, who has previously been placed under international sanctions.

Bokarev allegedly diverts part of the money he receives to what are described as “special state needs,” while gaining privileged access to government contracts in return — similar to the arrangement once used by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Journalists note that contracts to supply food to Russia’s Defense Ministry after Prigozhin’s killing were transferred to a person linked to Bokarev, who also obtained the former Wagner Group leader’s estate in Gelendzhik.

Investigators say Center 795 employs about 500 officers divided into three directorates: intelligence, assault operations and combat support.

The intelligence directorate consists of nine departments responsible for monitoring social media, analyzing commercial satellite imagery, running agent networks abroad, intercepting signals and conducting optical reconnaissance using Orlan and Eleron drones. The directorate also includes a sniper unit whose mission is likely to carry out targeted killings, The Insider reported.

The assault directorate includes four combat departments, each made up of four autonomous strike teams. None of the teams is aware of the actions of the others.

Journalists suggest the unit is capable of airborne deployment, based on the presence of paratroopers from Russia’s Federal Protective Service and the GRU.

The combat support directorate includes armored, artillery, medical, explosives and air defense departments. It also contains specialized divisions responsible for anti-tank operations, maintenance, fortifications and logistics. The unit reportedly operates T-90A tanks and Smerch 300 mm multiple-launch rocket systems.

According to The Insider, Center 795 has been granted the authority to recruit officers from other units of the Russian military as well as from the GRU, FSB and the Federal Protective Service, indicating a higher status within Russia’s security hierarchy. Journalists also identified veterans of Belarus’ KGB Alpha group among the center’s personnel.

Investigators say Denis Alimov previously served in Russia’s OMON riot police and in the Alpha unit of the FSB Special Purpose Center. He also maintained personal ties with Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov.

After joining Center 795, he continued working on Chechen operations, and one of his tasks involved kidnapping a political opponent of the Kremlin. According to The Insider, the target was a member of the family of Akhmed Zakayev, the head of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in exile, who lives in Britain.

According to the U.S. federal prosecutor’s office, Alimov recruited Darko Durovich, a Serbo-Croatian speaker living in the United States, for the operation against Zakayev. He allegedly promised him about $1.5 million “for each successfully ‘deported’ target,” and more than $10 million if a third person was captured.

The investigation says Center 795 was designed to withstand electronic surveillance. Its personnel communicate through encrypted messaging apps, use pseudonyms and rely on compartmentalized communication channels.

However, the unit overlooked a language barrier among its agents, The Insider reported.

Alimov spoke Russian, while Durovich spoke Serbo-Croatian. The latter is also fluent in English, but “apparently knowledge of English was not among the hiring requirements for the most elite team of the GRU.”

To translate Durovich’s field reports and Alimov’s operational instructions, they used Google Translate.

“The messages themselves were transmitted through encrypted applications that they considered secure. But the translation passed through servers belonging to an American technology company — servers that were subject to an FBI surveillance warrant,” the investigators said.

“With a court order, investigators were able to obtain access to the translation logs directly from the service provider, reading in real time the entire operational correspondence in plain text, even though Alimov and Durovich believed they were protected by end-to-end encryption.”

FBI investigators were eventually able to monitor Durovich conducting reconnaissance in Western Europe while tracking the first target — identified by journalists as a member of the Zakayev family.

“The arrest of Alimov at El Dorado Airport on Feb. 24 appears to have resulted from the convergence of several investigative tracks,” the report says.

“Colombian migration authorities, acting in coordination with Interpol, detained him after he arrived on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the trip was arranged at the last minute: documents reviewed by investigators indicate that just one day before departure he attempted to purchase a prepaid burner phone in Russia.”

In addition to charges of murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, Alimov has also been charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization and conspiracy to finance terrorism. Each of the main charges carries the possibility of life imprisonment.

“At one time unit 29155 was partially compromised because its officers used their real passports, traveled under their own names and left digital traces in European hotel registries and airline databases,” The Insider concluded.

“Center 795 tried to correct those weaknesses through corporate cover and division into autonomous units. But it did not last long because of a series of other mistakes — one of which was the use of Google Translate.”