Colombian sentenced in Russia to five years and two months in prison for posting the truth about the activities of the Russian army in Ukraine.
Colombian citizen Giraldo Enrique has been living and working in Moscow for more than twenty years. He started a family in Russia and has a daughter who is 12 years old.
10 April 2022 – Arrest
On 10 April 2022 he was arrested and charged of spreading ‘fake news’ about the actions of the Russian army (Article 207.3, Part 2, Paragraph b, of the Russian Criminal Code).
In fact, he posted the truth and the above article was introduced by the Russian government right after the start of the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, in order to supress public criticism inside of Russia.
According to the so-called investigators, in March 2022, on orders from abroad, Giraldo placed smartphones in a Moscow shopping centre. With these smart phones he carried out a mass mailing of ‘messages with information known to be false about the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, including about the alleged killing of civilians.’
During interrogation, Giraldo stated that he saw nothing reprehensible about the distribution of this information and believed that it contributed to the formation of an ‘alternative point of view’ about events in Ukraine.
Enrique’s lawyer did not disclose what exactly he was accused of sharing online, citing a gag order, according to the Kommersant business daily. His profiles on social media include several pro-Russian posts, including one that alleges Russophobia is rampant in the West and that Ukraine is a puppet of NATO.
Kommersant reported that Giraldo holds a Russian passport and investigators believed he was a flight risk because of a valid U.S. visa.
Enrique is reportedly a pastry sales entrepreneur who had worked for a travel agency selling trips to Latin America prior to his detention.
His sister told: “Yesterday morning I found out that he was arrested on Sunday in his apartment. My brother endorse in any kind of anti-government activity, they must know he can’t make that kind of comment,” said Diana Patricia. She added: “I talked to him on Saturday afternoon, and it seemed strange to me that he hadn’t written anything on Monday, but there was no indication that something like that would happen to him.”
The sister of the Colombian detained in Russia, said that her brother resides in this country because he had two enterprises, one for tourism and another for empanadas. Both enterprises were suffering from the situation in the pandemic, but he had never been involved in anything like that and she is surprised that until now, more than 48 hours after his detention, the consulate has not communicated with the family or given an official statement.
“His friend is the only one who has been able to give me information about him and the process that has been taking place. They are very frightened, this is a persecution. What they saw in the arrest report is totally false, my brother never got involved in political problems,” she emphasized with great concern.
Here is what the investigatores are saying:
The story began in the spring of 2022, when thousands of Russian subscribers, mainly in the regions bordering Ukraine, started to receive SMS messages about allegedly huge losses of the Russian army in the military operation in Ukraine. The messages also agitated against the operation itself and urged Russians to go to rallies. The criminals sent messages from various Russian mobile phone numbers to give the opinion a mass character. However, concerned citizens complained to law enforcement agencies.
The investigators have managed to establish the ownership of the mobile phones, from which the messages were sent. They discovered that Giraldo Saray, a 40-year-old Colombian citizen living in Moscow for a long time, was involved in the criminal scheme.
In particular, Giraldo Saray created a hidden bot farm in a locker room of a sports club in Moscow’s shopping center, according to video materials at Sputnik’s disposal. The place was chosen to ensure that the signal from the bot farm would be lost among the dozens of mall visitors’ mobile phones, the Colombian admitted during the interrogation.
To cover the tracks, Giraldo Saray periodically destroyed smartphones, which was caught on video. Broken phones seized by law enforcement officers are now being used as evidence in the case.
16 May 2023 – Sentenced to 5 years and 2 months in penal colony
16th of May. INTERFAX.RU – On Tuesday, the Golovinsky Court of Moscow found Colombian citizen Giraldo Saray Alberto Enrique guilty of disseminating deliberately false information about the behaviour of the Russian Armed Forces during the special military operation.
“The court of Giraldo Saray Alberto Enrique was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of five years and two months to be served in a penal colony,” the press service of the court told Interfax.
As established by the ICR and the court, from March 5 to April 9, 2022, “Giraldo Saray, having a residence permit in the Russian Federation, is part of an organized group with persons who directed his actions from abroad, provided technical training and subsequent covert accommodation for a monetary reward in one of the shopping centers of Moscow mobile devices. With the use of these means of communication, “mass mailing to subscribers of Russian operators of deliberately false messages about the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, including the killings of civilians,” was carried out remotely.
“The correspondence of the accused with other defendants in the case, who are citizens of one of the South American countries, was investigated. It was established that they carried out their activities in the interests of a foreign organization Digital Humanity (USA), associated with the US state Agency for International Development. The chain of financing of the criminal group was opened. Funds and digital financial assets were seized by the investigation,” the Investigative Committee said earlier.
They added that other defendants in the case were put on the wanted list.
“In the course of the investigation, data were obtained on the use by the same group of persons of a similar scheme for using mobile devices with SIM cards of Russian telecom operators in order to compromise the 2020 US presidential election and simulate Russian interference in the process of this election campaign,” the Investigative Committee said.
Saray was arrested in April by the Moscow Basmanny Court. According to SPARK-Interfax, Giraldo Saray Alberto Enrique was engaged in individual entrepreneurship in the Russian Federation, but in the fall of 2021, by his own decision, he stopped this activity.