Chechen functionaries close to Chechen Head Ramzan Kadyrov and linked to organised crime groups have been operating freely in Hamburg for decades, a joint investigation by the Russian independent media outlet The Insider and the German media outlet Der Spiegel has found. The journalists note that the operations have been taking place against the backdrop of Germany tightening visa rules for Russians with anti-war views.
According to the investigation, Chechens who entered the country on humanitarian grounds not only continue to visit their home republic regularly and openly praise Kadyrov, but also run logistics and security companies that have full and legal access to key infrastructure facilities in Germany, including the country’s largest seaport and major railway hubs.
Timur Dugazaev, a European champion in mixed martial arts, previously served as an ‘official representative’ of Kadyrov in Hamburg. Although such a position does not formally exist, the Chechen authorities actively use this title anyways. Dugazaev arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2002, but only obtained refugee status in 2005, after Kadyrov came to power.
Six years later, Dugazaev received German citizenship, which did not prevent him from regularly flying to Chechnya from 2014 onwards and acting as Kadyrov’s representative. In Germany, he met with Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Abuzayd Vismuradov, who commanded the Chechen SOBR unit Terek and has been implicated in the organisation of torture and killing of gay men in Chechnya.
Dugazaev was placed under US sanctions in 2020 for human rights violations together with Kadyrov, after which he returned to Chechnya. No sanctions were imposed on him in Europe.
In 2020, Dugazaev was replaced as Chechnya’s representative in Germany by Khusein (Saikhan) Agaev, who, like his predecessor, arrived in Germany on ‘humanitarian’ grounds.
Agaev is also closely linked to Kadyrov: in video footage from a wedding in Chechnya in 2017, he is seen greeting the head of the republic as an honoured guest. Despite his ‘refugee’ status, Agaev appeared on official Chechen television at a congress in Grozny in 2024, where he was introduced as a ‘representative of the Chechen diaspora in Germany’. At this congress, Agaev spoke about how Chechens should be proud of Kadyrov. According to flight database records, Agaev and his son Selam, who are registered as living on Grozny’s Putin Avenue, travel to Chechnya every year.
Agaev heads the logistics and security company RIM-Group, founded in 2012, which operates directly at the port of Hamburg. Moreover, Agaev’s circle, including his business partner Ali Itaev, who also regularly flies to Russia, is linked to other logistics companies operating across Germany, such as International Logistics and DIS Personaldienstleistung GmbH, which works in warehouse logistics.
At the same time, German intelligence services have recorded how agents, often holding dual citizenship, collect information on energy facilities, the movement of military equipment and railway trains. For example, in October 2025, the Munich Higher Regional Court convicted three people of espionage and preparing acts of sabotage. In addition, German law enforcement agencies as early as 2019 drew attention to the fact that Chechen mafia groups were attempting to gain access to confidential information held by security agencies. Now, as it has emerged, there is no need to recruit people or use grey schemes: Kadyrov-linked figures have access to such information entirely legally.
The Insider also reports that a group of Chechens from Agaev’s circle identify themselves with the MMA fighters’ sports club Rezhim-95 (95 being Chechnya’s regional code). Members of this group like to be photographed against portraits of Al Capone and caption their pictures with the hashtag ‘bratva’ (‘brotherhood’).
Sources in the German police explained that fighters from Chechen MMA clubs often work in security structures and take part in the ‘protection’ of criminal businesses. Their particular cohesion and readiness to use violence make representatives of the Chechen diaspora especially visible in Germany’s criminal underworld. Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office has previously described Rezhim-95 as being connected to organised crime.
Concerns among German law enforcement agencies are heightened by the fact that Khusein and Selim Agaev themselves appear in crime reports. In early May 2025, in Schleswig-Holstein, the Agaevs allegedly beat their business partner in a lawyer’s office over a debt of tens of thousands of euros, forcing him to hand over the money. German authorities are also conducting several other investigations into Khusein Agaev, including suspicions of aggravated robbery and the alleged fencing of stolen goods as part of organised criminal activity.
The journalists concluded that ‘against the backdrop of the growing popularity of right-wing populist parties and anti-migration sentiment, the behaviour of Agaev and his team may further complicate the situation of asylum seekers and Chechen migrants in Germany in general, who already face frequent deportations due to suspicions of links to Islamic fundamentalism. And the increasing number of cases of Russian sabotage at German infrastructure facilities provides ample grounds for such suspicion’.
Elizaveta Chukharova
