How did Bellingcat obtain telephone metadata of FSB operatives in their investigation of Alexei Navalny's poisoning?

[cirosantilli]

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemical-weapon-experts-implicated-in-alexey-navalny-novichok-poisoning/

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/How-did-Bellingcat-obtain-telephone-metadata-of-FSB-operatives-in-its-investigation-of-Alexei-Navalnys-poisoning'

https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1144697596109295618 says on a previous investigation that the "Bellingcat obtained telephone metadata records for Sergeev from a whistleblower working at a Russian mobile operator". So they got that tip again? That seems really odd. The FSB can't be that stupid?

https://www.quora.com/How-did-Bellingcat-obtain-telephone-metadata-of-FSB-operatives-in-its-investigation-of-Alexei-Navalnys-poisoning/answer/Centis-Gerc%C4%81ns puts forward the suggestion that they bought cell phone data only for the involved agents from corrupt/whilstleblower employees/officials

[ghost]

https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-48037582

This article was published a year before poisoning and is unrelated to it. It talks about how easy it is to get personal data in Russia about anyone on special forums, and it costs almost nothing. And the FSB has undergone the some degradation process as the whole country in general, so yes, their personal data is perhaps a bit more protected, but also reachable without much effort. You can try reading the article with google translate, if you are really interested, but the gist of it is -- the wages in Russia are so small where these people work, that there will always be a queue of people ready to sell you personal data for a hundred dollars.

[cirosantilli]

https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-48037582

This article was published a year before poisoning and is unrelated to it. It talks about how easy it is to get personal data in Russia about anyone on special forums, and it costs almost nothing. And the FSB has undergone the some degradation process as the whole country in general, so yes, their personal data is perhaps a bit more protected, but also reachable without much effort. You can try reading the article with google translate, if you are really interested, but the gist of it is -- the wages in Russia are so small where these people work, that there will always be a queue of people ready to sell you personal data for a hundred dollars.

Thanks @avemilia for the source!!!