Daghestani police have detained the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Molodyozh Daghestana (The Youth of Daghestan), Magomed Magomedov, on charges of large-scale fraud allegedly committed during his tenure as general director of state-run news agency RIA Daghestan.
Daghestan’s Interior Ministry announced that Magomedov was detained on 21 November and placed in pre-trial detention for two months.
They claimed that during Magomedov’s tenure as general director of RIA Daghestan between 2013–2023, he unlawfully hired employees who ‘did not actually perform their duties’. Salaries were transferred to their bank accounts and were then retained by him, investigators claim.
Information about Magomedov’s detention was published on the Telegram channel Criminal Chronicle by the Head of Daghestan’s Interior Ministry’s press service, Gayana Garieva.
It is also alleged that Magomedov concluded a number of fictitious service contracts. According to Garieva, these episodes caused ‘especially large-scale damage’ to RIA Daghestan’s budget.
Magomedov is a well-known journalist and media manager in Daghestan. According to open sources, he was born in 1975, graduated from a pedagogical university, and from 2013–2023 headed RIA Daghestan. In 2025, he became the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Molodyozh Daghestana.
Molodyozh Daghestana is a state-owned print publication. It was founded in 1921 and has changed its name several times. In the 1990s, the newspaper became one of the first independent print media outlets in Daghestan.
Magomedov is still listed on the newspaper’s website as editor-in-chief, OC Media has found.
Journalists and civil activists in Daghestan have repeatedly spoken about pressure on the media. Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, the head of the religion section of the daily Chernovik, was detained in the summer of 2019 and accused of financing terrorism. In 2023, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
The founder of Chernovik, Khadzhimurad Kamalov, was shot dead in the courtyard of the media outlet’s building late in the evening of 15 December 2011 — the journalist was leaving work to take the layout of the next issue to the printing house at the time of his murder. Kamalov received at least six gunshot wounds and died on the way to hospital.
Elizaveta Chukharova
