The ex-photographer of the cadet school in Kemerovo offered parents to buy photographs of their children; The FSB sent a third-party buyer to him to initiate a criminal case

The Leninsky District Court of Kemerovo imposed a fine of 50 thousand rubles on a former employee of the Kemerovo Presidential Cadet School, who was accused of illegal storage and transfer of computer information due to the sale of photographs of cadets. Mediazona drew attention to the court’s decision .

The convict worked at the school as a mechanic servicing equipment, but in fact he was a photographer, although this was not part of his job responsibilities, the man said during the preliminary investigation. He pleaded not guilty and refused to testify in court.

The Kemerovo resident quit the school due to the high workload and after that wrote to the parents of the cadets on WhatsApp that he could sell them photo archives at a price of 1,000 rubles per person. The man believed that “the memory of the years of study at the school is important for people.”

Then a girl contacted the former mechanic and asked if she could buy the archive of the 21st Platoon cadets. The man thought that she was a representative of the parent committee and replied that the archive would cost 13 thousand rubles - according to the number of children in the platoon. The girl transferred money to him, and the Kemerovo resident sent her a link to Yandex Disk with pictures. Some of them were signed with the full names of the children - as the convict explained, in order to eliminate errors in the design of the albums.

Judging by the resolution, initially the senior teacher of the school complained to the authorities about the man, who at the beginning of 2025 learned that the cadets were discussing photographs. From the words of the children, he understood that one of the parents had photographs from the photographer, although providing them was prohibited by internal rules. The teacher reported this to his supervisor.

After this, the head of the school (this position has been occupied by Yuri Gordeev since 2019) reported the actions of the former employee to the curator from the military counterintelligence of the FSB - and the head of the department for the Central Military District , Viktor Pavlenko, authorized the “Operational Experiment”.

The girl to whom the former school employee sold the photographs wrote to him on the instructions of the security forces. In court, she testified as a witness and said that she collaborated with FSB officers voluntarily. They gave her 13 thousand rubles for photographs of the cadets.

The convict and his lawyer called the actions of the security forces illegal. The court did not find any signs of provocation in them, since the man himself offered to sell the photographs, and the FSB officers “only implemented the information received,” the decision says.

The chairwoman of the parents' committee also spoke in court and said that previously the school provided families with photographs of cadets free of charge. At the same time, the assistant head of the school for security said that cadets are photographed “for internal purposes only,” and providing photographs to parents is “prohibited, both paid and free.”

The convicted mechanic said that there was no such ban, and he could send general and portrait photographs of children to parents at their request - free of charge without processing and for money with it. He was only forbidden to provide them with photographs of the school’s ceremonial events.

Along with the fine, the court imposed a one-year ban on the man from working with computer information containing personal data. During the consideration of the criminal case, he was under recognizance not to leave the place.