According to sources for VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info:
"As data-lookup services proliferated, the FSB faced a choice: destroy them or bring them under operational control—meaning the ability to monitor the services' content as well as who was making requests and what they were asking for.
To facilitate their destruction, the notorious Article 272.1 was added to the Criminal Code. Criminal cases and arrests soon followed.
This operation is being handled by officers from the FSB’s Internal Security Directorate (USB), acting on the personal orders of the Directorate’s chief, Alexey Vertyashkin.
Ultimately, some projects have been shut down, and some individuals have even ended up in pre-trial detention. Others remain at large. For instance, 'Chimera' is thriving and has even launched a new project called 'NOX.' The 'Chimera PRO' project incorporates databases previously seized from other, now-defunct services.
Chimera’s creators—Stanislav Kirillov and Dmitry Zhuravlev—are in Russia and feel completely secure.
We are disregarding the 'show trial' verdict handed down to the BSTM (Special Technical Measures Bureau) officer who was singled out as the primary scapegoat for selling data to these services."
