“Do you never wonder how all this information about this apparently top-secret dude is so easy to come by? Who took this picture? How did they get hold of his driving licence? How do you know it’s genuine? Why don’t journalists ask questions anymore?”

Michael Marshall (Twitter October 6 2018)

October 8 2018 — Crime Russia has reported that independent investigators from “Conflict Intelligence Team” (CIT) posted — via their Twitter account — a picture of a driving license, which allegedly belongs to GRU Colonel Anatoly Chepiga.  There is one problem. This document is obviously a forgery. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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UPDATE (February 22 2021) — New leaked documents show Reuters’ and the BBC’s involvement in covert UK FCO programs to effect “attitudinal change” and “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” alongside intel contractors and Bellingcat. [Grayzone — Max Blumenthal]

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have sponsored Reuters and the BBC to conduct a series of covert programs aimed at promoting regime change inside Russia and undermining its government across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to a series of leaked documents.

The UK FCO projects were carried out covertly, and in partnership with purportedly independent, high-profile online media outfits including Bellingcat, Meduza, and the Pussy Riot-founded Mediazona.

After Alexei Navalny’s poisoning, he collaborated with the UK-based “open source” journalism outfit Bellingcat to pin the crime on Russia’s FSB intelligence services. Though it is well established that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, a US government entity that supports regime-change operations around the globe, the fact has never appeared in the reams of fawning profiles that corporate media outlets, including Reuters, have published about the organization.

Bellingcat’s role as a partner in the Zinc Network’s UK FCO-funded EXPOSE Consortium may add an additional layer of suspicion about the outlet’s claim to independence.

Indeed, Bellingcat was listed in leaked 2018 documents as a key member of Zinc’s “Network of NGOs.” Among the members in the network was the Institute for Statecraft, the front for the Integrity Initiative.

In recent years, the BBC and Reuters have played an increasingly aggressive part in demonizing the governments of countries where London and Washington are seeking regime change. Meanwhile, high-profile online investigative outlets like Bellingcat have sprouted up seemingly overnight to assist these efforts.

The stories about the chemical attacks in Syria and Salisbury were total and obvious nonsense from the beginning. And yet, the media accepted these fairy tales without any reservation.

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Just wondering. Will Facebook, Twitter and others ban Bellingcat’s Fake News? Don’t bet on it just yet.

END of UPDATE

The Insider and Bellingcat claim that Anatoly Chepiga is actually the real name of ‘Ruslan Boshirov’, one of the two Russians charged by the British authorities with the poisoning of Sergey Skripal — a former British spy and  ex-GRU Colonel of the Ministry of Defense — and his daughter.

“According to the OSAGO insurance policies database, this driver’s license is indeed registered in the name of Anatoly Vladimirovich Chepiga.” — Crime Russia (October 6 2018) 

According to the document, the Interdistrict Registration and Examination Unit of the traffic police in Khabarovsk granted Chepiga the license in May 2009.

Was Chepiga Driving License Photoshopped?

First, let me show you what a regular “John Doe” Russian driving license looks like.

Please, notice the stamp over the picture and the document. There is almost no discontinuity either on the left or the bottom part of the picture of Mr Smirnov.

But now, take a good look at the same part of “Chepiga’s driving licence”!

On this document, there appears to be two different shades of blue. Also, there is no evidence of the stamp under the pic. Finally, there is a gap on the left of the photo.

Why on earth why?

With a bit of work, you can easily discover that the circles on the document and on the photo do NOT have the same center!

If you read the word “Хабаровскmy” on the inner circle, it is absolutely obvious that the beginning of the word Хаб” and the rest of it “аровскmy” were not printed by the same stamp tool as the first three letters are printed a bit higher than the rest of the word.

That document is an obvious forgery. Period.

REFERENCES

Picture of Chepiga-Boshirov’s driver’s license published — Crime Russia

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