The head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, personally arrived in St. Petersburg on July 4, where he received back all the weapons confiscated after searches, Fontanka reports, without identifying the source.
According to the newspaper, the meeting was held at the building of the FSB Directorate of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast on Liteiny Prospect. The head of the mercenaries, who arranged a military rebellion, was given two Saiga carbines, a rifled Austrian Steyr Mannlicher carbine, an ARKA semi-automatic rifle and several other guns and pistols. In addition, Prigozhin allegedly received back a Glock pistol awarded to him by the head of the Ministry of Defense Sergey Shoigu.
The day before Fontanka reported that the head of Wagner was also returned the money confiscated during searches: 10 billion rubles, “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and five bars of gold. The law enforcement authorities were not going to do that in the morning of July 2, but by the evening the decision was made. A driver with a power of attorney came to pick up the cash.
On July 24 after the beginning of the armed mutiny of Wagner PMC the offices and cars of Prigozhin in St. Petersburg were searched. In the courtyard of the hotel Palace Trezzini security forces found a Gazelle with 4 billion rubles, and in the underground parking of the River Palace Hotel from the minivan took another 6 billion rubles, the newspaper wrote.
Prigozhin did not deny that the found cash belonged to him. “I found not just one Gazelle. I found Gazelle and two buses, which contained the money to pay salaries, the so-called compensation Cargo 200 and other issues,” – explained the head of Wagner PMC.
On the night of July 24, the FSB opened a case against Prigozhin for calling for an armed insurgency, but it was closed on July 27. According to the agreement of the head of the PMC with the authorities, in exchange for stopping the criminal prosecution, he stopped the mercenary march on Moscow, released the headquarters of the Southern Military District and agreed to relocate to Belarus.
It is not known where Prigozhin is now. After the end of the mutiny, it was reported that he would go to Belarus. The President of the republic confirmed that the head of the mercenaries would stay in the country for some time. However, Prigozhin’s plane flew back from Belarus to the territory of the Russian Federation several times.
On June 29, Fontanka reported that a man who looked like Prigozhin was spotted in the center of St. Petersburg. He was wearing a mask and a cap, so it was impossible to recognize his face. The man flew away in a helicopter, which belonged to a company associated with Prigozhin.
