Alexey Navalny's researchers dig up lavish real estate owned by the mother-in-law of Russia's Pension Fund director

He’s currently behind bars, serving out a 30-day jail term, but Alexey Navalny is making himself heard in Moscow this week, nevertheless. On Thursday, the Anti-Corruption Foundation published its latest investigative report about alleged government corruption, revealing that Russian Pension Fund director Anton Drozdov’s mother-in-law owns a lavish country home outside Moscow worth an estimated 400 million rubles ($5.9 million).

The property was apparently a gift from Drozdov’s wife in late December 2009, handed over just a few months after she acquired it. By having his wife transfer the real estate to her mother, Drozdov managed to keep it off his assets declarations. Navalny’s team says Drozdov’s family owns nearly a billion rubles ($14.6 million) in real estate.

How often does the Anti-Corruption Foundation release these reports?

All the doggone time. Russian officialdom, moreover, appears to be so corrupt that Navalny’s investigative team is able to roll out reports about public figures who have only recently become relevant in the news (like Anton Drozdov in the context of the national debate about pension reform).

Earlier in August, the Anti-Corruption Foundation reported that State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin’s 82-year-old mother owns a 230-million-ruble ($3.4-million) apartment in Moscow, as well as nearly a dozen small businesses. Volodin says he and his mother got rich more than a decade ago by selling their shares in a company that makes sunflower oil and mayonnaise, walking away with a combined $200 million. Navalny says media reports from 2014 and 2017 show the value of these shares was roughly 10 times less, however.