Moscow police searched the head office of the Telegram news channel Baza on Tuesday morning, the channel said in a statement.
Officers also searched the apartment of Baza’s editor-in-chief, Gleb Trifonov, who was not responding to phone calls or messages, according to the outlet. Neighbors told Baza that police took Trifonov to an unknown location.
Baza, known for its pro-government leanings and close ties to law enforcement, frequently cites anonymous police sources in its reporting. It has more than 1.6 million subscribers on Telegram.
The channel said several of its employees were not responding to calls or messages following the search on Tuesday.
There was no official confirmation of the searches or any arrests. However, the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Nu Ranshe Vsekh published photos and a video showing law enforcement officers inside Baza’s office, with staff standing nearby.
Initially, Baza said it did not know the reason for the search, suggesting only that it may be connected to a criminal investigation launched “in one of Russia’s regions.”
The channel later reported that Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, had opened an investigation into abuse of power, alleging that a law enforcement official leaked confidential information that was later published on a Telegram channel.
In a short statement, investigators said police searches connected to that investigation were reportedly carried out in Moscow and the regions of Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk and Belgorod. Authorities did not mention Baza specifically.
Tuesday’s searches came nearly two months after a similar raid at the pro-government news outlet Ura.ru in Yekaterinburg, where the editor-in-chief was accused of bribing his uncle, a former police official.
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