Notevole. <https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2020/12/14/navalny-fsb-methodology/> December 14, 2020 Translations: Русский <https://ru.bellingcat.com/materialy/casestudies/2020/12/28/navalny-fsb-metho...> Today, alongside investigative partners CNN, Der Spiegel, and The Insider, we identified <https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemica...> a long-running FSB operation to trail Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, including a number of chemical weapons experts involved in the research and development of Novichok. How did we find all of this information, and how did we verify the information? We’ll detail our investigative methodologies here, with some discussion on Russian data markets, cross-referencing data to be sure of its veracity, and other topics. Bellingcat has previously investigated the role of a chain of Russian government-run scientific institutes in providing research into and manufacturing of nerve agent for GRU’s overseas assassination program, including the March 2018 Novichok poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal and the earlier poisoning of Bulgarian arms manufacturer Emilian Gebrev. In the course of a Belingcat investigation into Russia’s renewed chemical weapons project, we analyzed call metadata for the telephone numbers used by two senior executives of SC Signal, an entity that we found to be directly involved in the development of new variants and application methods for nerve agents <https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/10/23/russias-clandestine...>. We had observed that in the months preceding Alexey Navalny’s poisoning, both of these executives – Arur Zhirov and Victor Taranchenko – had communicated with Stanislav Makshakov, and less frequently with his FSB superiors Kirill Vasilyev and Vladimir Bogdanov. At the start of Bellingcat’s investigation into the Navalny poisoning we investigated whether a similar surge appeared between SC Signal executives and the GRU-linked institute just before the Navalny poisoning in Tomsk. We did not find such a pattern; with a single Signal-GRU (Sergey Chepur) phone call on 6 July 2020. However we did observe a more significant surge between SC Signal and FSB linked numbers. In particular, The first such surge appeared in the period 29 June 2020 to 7 July 2020, with а peak on 6 July 2020. On 6 July, SC Signal’s CEO Artur Zhirov had received calls from four different FSB employees linked to the Criminalistics Institute, including Col. Stanislav Makshakov and Gen. Vladimir Bogdanov. In addition Zhirov had received a call from a landline number belonging to FSB’s secure communications department. [...] Tugging on one thread will unravel an entire tapestry of cross-referenced data, eventually revealing how Navalny’s poisoning was planned and carried out by a team of chemical weapon experts and FSB operatives. Much of this data is available due to the negligence of the Russian government — it’s hard to imagine an entire city’s vehicle registration database with passport numbers, addresses, license plate numbers, and other data to be leaked online annually for anyone to find in Germany or Canada — as well as the sloppiness of the security services themselves. The FSB and GRU are as ambitious as they are dangerous in their operations, but the same cannot be said about their operational security practices. You do not need to look for dead drops in a park or trail people through alleyways to uncover the cover identities of spies, rather you just need a keen eye, patience, and the sense of knowing where to look for available leaked data sources.