Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Russian home was just raided by Russian security services – and they allegedly found wigs, among other very bizarre objects.
The boss of the Wagner mercenary group, who was thought to be in exile in Belarus, owns a St Petersburg Palace, and apparently filled it with guns, ammunition, gold bars and a stuffed alligator (along with the hair pieces).
There were even large piles of cash (supposedly worth 600 million roubles, or £5m) in various parts of the home, and a sledgehammer with the words “for use in important negotiations” inscribed on it.
According to Reuters news agency, this was a tool Wagner allegedly used to bludgeon traitors to death in videos which later appeared online.
A personal helicopter, a private prayer room, a spa, a sauna area, an indoor swimming pool, a fully equipped medical treatment room and multiple passports belonging to Prigozhin with different names were also allegedly uncovered.
The pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia shared the images along with a video from the FSB – Russian security services – days after Prigozhin was allegedly exiled from his home country to Belarus.
The Wagner chief tried to stage an armed rebellion on the Russian military at the end of June.
The mercenaries did manage to take a city without resistance on their way to Moscow, but the coup was called off after an intervention from the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.
However, just days after a truce which saw Prigozhin sent to Belarus in exile, Lukashenko has now claimed that the Wagner chief is actually not there.
He told journalists on Thursday that Prigozhin “may be” in St Petersburg or Moscow instead.
Prigozhin has not actually been seen in person since the mutiny.
Reports claimed a plane belonging to the Wagner Group landed at a military airfield 20km from Minsk three days after the coup was foiled, which was assumed to be a sign the Wagner chief had arrived in Belarus.
He did also release an audio recording shortly after the failed coup, clarifying that he and his fighters did not want to overthrow the government, and that it was just a “march for justice”.
Despite Russian president Vladimir Putin’s repeated condemnation of the mutiny, the criminal treason charges after the Wagner boss and his fighters have been dropped.
Still, Russian state TV has claimed that an investigation in to what happened is ongoing.
The mutiny has seriously shaken confidence in Putin’s authoritarian regime, especially as Prigozhin is thought to still be popular among Russian citizens.
It was the biggest threat to the president’s premiership since Putin assumed power more than 20 years ago.