FSB, Russian industry leaders and government officials travel to Iran - Safiran data

After publishing our initial article about the group Hooshyarane Vatan’s hack of Safiran, we have had a bit of time to look at the data some more. We wanted to know who the Russian visitors to Iran were so started here.

We have provided a summary of our findings with our in-depth analysis below:

Flights include prominent Russian businessmen/ministers
An alleged Russian intelligence officer (Kharchenko) is involved in the deals
One of Putin’s aides is involved in the deals

Here are our in-depth findings:

Airport codes

It is useful to know the airport codes for the scheduled flights:

UUWW – Vnukovo International Airport (Moscow, Russia)
OIII – Mehrabad International Airport (Tehran, Iran)
OMAD – Al Bateen Executive Airport (Abu Dhabi, UAE)
OIGG – Rasht Airport (Rasht, Iran)

Scheduled flights

Here is a list of scheduled flights. Take note of the flight from Mehrabad to the UAE which flies out with zero passengers and returns with two passengers. We discuss this flight later in the article.

NWC9041 UUWW 0830Z 16JAN 2023 – OIII 1200Z 16JAN 2023 08 PAX
NWC9042 OIII 1300Z 16JAN 2023 – OMAD 1500Z 16JAN 2023 00 PAX
NWC9042 OMAD 1530Z 16JAN 2023 – OIII 1730Z 16JAN 2023 02 PAX
NWC9042 OIII 0530Z 18JAN 2023 – OIGG 0600Z 18JAN 2023 10 PAX
NWC9043 OIGG 1430Z 18JAN 2023 – OIII 1500Z 18JAN 2023 10 PAX
NWC9044 OIII 1540Z 18JAN 2023 – UUWW 1915Z 18JAN 2023 08 PAX

Russian visitors

The list of Russian personnel who visited Iran were:

PAX LIST UUWW-OIII (Vnukovo International Airport – Mehrabad International Airport)

SHISHKAREV SERGEY, RUS, PASS 769126448, DOB: 02.02.1968, DOE: 27.10.2032
BOGOMOLOV DENIS, RUS, PASS 757613642, DOB: 08.07.1981, DOE: 28.03.2028
MORGUNOV MIKHAIL, RUS, PASS 100140825, DOB: 03.01.1981, DOE: 31.05.2023
EVDOKIMENKO VITALY, RUS, PASS 761070292, DOB: 26.12.1962, DOE: 10.07.2029
MISHARIN ALEXANDER, RUS, PASS 759489865, DOB: 21.01.1959, DOE: 24.10.2028
ILIICHEV VLADIMIR, RUS, PASS 120023197, DOB: 28.09.1976, DOE: 19.06.2023
LAVRINENKO PETR, RUS, PASS 726936053, DOB: 11.04.1992, DOE: 03.12.2023
BAZHENOV MIKHAIL, RUS, PASS 756238708, DOB: 21.11.1982, DOE: 24.10.2027

PAX LIST OMAD-OIII (Al Bateen Executive Airport – Mehrabad International Airport)

LEVITIN IGOR, RUS, PASS 100157707, DOB: 21.02.1952, DOE: 14.12.2026
KHARCHENKO ANDREI, RUS, PASS 200738797, DOB: 11.03.1980, DOE: 26.11.2026

PAX LIST OIII-OIGG-OIII (Mehrabad International Airport – Rasht Airport – Mehrabad International Airport)

SHISHKAREV SERGEY, RUS, PASS 769126448, DOB: 02.02.1968, DOE: 27.10.2032
BOGOMOLOV DENIS, RUS, PASS 757613642, DOB: 08.07.1981, DOE: 28.03.2028
MORGUNOV MIKHAIL, RUS, PASS 100140825, DOB: 03.01.1981, DOE: 31.05.2023
EVDOKIMENKO VITALY, RUS, PASS 761070292, DOB: 26.12.1962, DOE: 10.07.2029
MISHARIN ALEXANDER, RUS, PASS 759489865, DOB: 21.01.1959, DOE: 24.10.2028
ILIICHEV VLADIMIR, RUS, PASS 120023197, DOB: 28.09.1976, DOE: 19.06.2023
LEVITIN IGOR, RUS, PASS 100157707, DOB: 21.02.1952, DOE: 14.12.2026
KHARCHENKO ANDREI, RUS, PASS 200738797, DOB: 11.03.1980, DOE: 26.11.2026
LAVRINENKO PETR, RUS, PASS 726936053, DOB: 11.04.1992, DOE: 03.12.2023
BAZHENOV MIKHAIL, RUS, PASS 756238708, DOB: 21.11.1982, DOE: 24.10.2027

PAX LIST OIII-UUWW (Mehrabad International Airport – Vnukovo International Airport)

SHISHKAREV SERGEY, RUS, PASS 769126448, DOB: 02.02.1968, DOE: 27.10.2032
BOGOMOLOV DENIS, RUS, PASS 757613642, DOB: 08.07.1981, DOE: 28.03.2028
MORGUNOV MIKHAIL, RUS, PASS 100140825, DOB: 03.01.1981, DOE: 31.05.2023
EVDOKIMENKO VITALY, RUS, PASS 761070292, DOB: 26.12.1962, DOE: 10.07.2029
MISHARIN ALEXANDER, RUS, PASS 759489865, DOB: 21.01.1959, DOE: 24.10.2028
ILIICHEV VLADIMIR, RUS, PASS 120023197, DOB: 28.09.1976, DOE: 19.06.2023
LAVRINENKO PETR, RUS, PASS 726936053, DOB: 11.04.1992, DOE: 03.12.2023
BAZHENOV MIKHAIL, RUS, PASS 756238708, DOB: 21.11.1982, DOE: 24.10.2027

By doing some research on the internet we have found that a lot of these individuals are prominent Russian businessmen. Here is some information on each one:

Sergey Shishkarev

Shishkarev is a Russian businessman and political figure [1]. He is president of Delo Group, a transportation company. He studied foreign languages while in the military and apparently, holds the rank of Colonel in the reserve forces.

Vitaly Evdokimenko

Portnews.ru [2] states that Evdokimenko was born in 1962, which matches the date of birth on the passenger list. It also says he was made President of TransContainer in September 2022 and that TransContainer is part of Delo Group.

Alexander Misharin

Misharin is the former governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast and was previously Russia’s Deputy Transport Minister. He has also been involved in the Russian rail industry [3].

Vladimir Ilichev

According to Rupep.org [4], Ilichev has been the Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development since 21 March 2020.

Igor Levitin

According to the Kremlin’s website [5], Igor Levitin is an aide to the President of Russia (Vladimir Putin) and has been since 2 September 2013. He has previously served in the military as the Head of Military Transport and Deputy Head of Military Transport on the Moscow Railway. He has also been the Russian Transport Minister.

Andrei Kharchenko

However, searching Denis Bogomolov, Mikhail Morgunov, Petr Lavrinenko and Mikhail Bazhenov provided no results. This is strange as most people these days have social media. If you have information about them let us know.

What was most interesting though, was the name Andrei Kharchenko. Searching his name returns an article written by the Bellingcat Investigative Group [6].

In this report, they say that Kharchenko visitede Italy to discuss funding of the Italian political party, Lega Nord. The report adds that Kharchenko is directly linked to far-right ideologist Aleksandr Dugin.

However, the story gets stranger – it is unknown what Kharchenko does for a living. Although he has claimed to work for the International Eurasian Movement, there is no mention of him on their website and a senior officer at the HQ had not heard of him. Bellingcat sources, who had access to Russian tax databases, also said his file for the last five years was empty.

Bellingcat state that Kharchenko was born in Azerbaijan in March 1980. This matches the details in the passenger list which states his date of birth is 11 March 1980.

Interestingly, Bellingcat reports that Kharchenko has travelled using a service passport and that these are only made available to government or state employees. Although Bellingcat states they cannot establish which state-linked entity had sponsored his special passports, other news websites, such as Intelnews.org [7], allege that he is “an employee of Russian intelligence.”

Flight anomaly

After reading the information on the flights and backgrounds of the passengers, it poses the following question – What were Kharchenko, an alleged Russian intelligence officer, and Putin’s aide, Levitin, doing in the UAE?

We know from the leaked data that Safiran is using a middleman in the UAE to help facilitate their dealings. His details are in the picture below:

It is odd how Kharchenko and Levitin make the return trip to Rasht but are not included on the passenger list back to Vnukovo International Airport, Russia and are presumably still in Iran.

Russian intelligence and leaders of shipping and transport all gathering in Iran using the services of a sanctioned company linked to UAV sales. Does this indicate plans to increase supply of UAVs to Russia for the war in Ukraine? Are Iran looking at different options for shipping over sea and by rail? Why was Andrei Kharchenko on a flight with just Igor Levitin flying from the UAE to Tehran? Who are Denis Bogomolov, Mikhail Morgunov, Petr Lavrinenko and Mikhail Bazhenov?

Let us know your thoughts or if you have found anything interesting in the data.

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Twitter – @IranCyberNews