Purchase on guard: clinic director detained for child trafficking
The number of detainees in a high-profile child trafficking case in the Moscow region has reached four. At the end of October, Irina Rudnitskaya, a well-known social activist, psychologist and mother of many children, was arrested in connection with it, as well as a man who, judging by the investigation materials, recorded himself as the father of children born to different mothers. The case also involves the mother of a child who could have been sold. And the fourth detainee was the director of the Moscow clinic of plastic surgery. The experts interviewed recall that the number of such cases has been growing over the past 10 years, and note that they are being investigated slowly and very carefully — for up to a year and a half. The details of the case are in the Izvestia article.
Who is accused of child trafficking
Darina Rubinina, director of the private aesthetic surgery clinic, became the fourth person involved in the criminal case of child trafficking. On Thursday, November 6, 2025, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow must choose a measure of restraint for her.
This is a continuation of the sensational case — at the end of October 2025, law enforcement officers detained the mother of 12 children, a well-known public figure and clinical psychologist Irina Rudnitskaya. She was charged with child trafficking and arrested until November 22. In support of the decision, the court pointed to the severity of the alleged crime — the penalty for it can be up to 10 years in prison. The court decided that being at large, the accused could escape from the investigation or obstruct justice.
As follows from the case file (available to Izvestia), Rudnitskaya and another defendant, Shapiula Abdurakhmanov (who was arrested along with Rudnitskaya), are accused of organizing the deal. It is Abdurakhmanov who is listed as the father of two children born in May 2020. These children appear in the case file. They were born on different days of the same month, and they have different mothers.
According to investigators, Rudnitskaya, being the head of the foster parents' school, offered Abdurakhmanov a deal so that he would enter information about his paternity into the birth certificates of the babies, and then take them for himself.
Rudnitskaya's lawyer, Sergei Vakhrushev, told Izvestia that her arrest took place in the early morning. The human rights defender's relatives do not believe in her guilt and believe that she was framed. Rudnitskaya fully admitted her guilt and began cooperating with the investigation.
Nevertheless, her lawyer filed an appeal against the arrest. He insists on his client's minimal involvement in this crime, claiming that Rudnitskaya was only familiar with other defendants.
A similar preventive measure in the form of detention was chosen on October 30 in relation to the second accused, Shapiula Abdurakhmanov. In addition, an entrepreneur from the Moscow region is among those arrested, her role in the case has not yet been disclosed.
What is the alleged role of the fourth person involved in the case, Darina Rubinina— in this scheme is also not reported. As Izvestia found out, Rubinina is the founder of two large companies: Center for Aesthetic Medicine and Hirudotherapy LLC and Novo-Market LLC. In 2024, the clinic's revenue amounted to 252 million rubles, and its profit was 2.7 million rubles.
The cost of services starts from 65 thousand rubles, the most expensive procedure costs customers from 790 thousand rubles.
Izvestia managed to establish that Rubinina was married to Abdurakhmanov, divorced in 2022, and they have children together.
This fact is confirmed by information in the case of the dissolution of the marriage of the spouses, as well as in the case of the recovery of alimony, where Rubinina is the plaintiff and Abdurakhmanov is the defendant.
What threatens the defendants
This is far from the first high-profile child trafficking case this year. So, in July 2025, a similar criminal case was transferred to the Perovsky Court of Moscow. Yulia Loginova, a mother of 15 children, was detained after receiving information from the hospital about the detection of a drug prohibited for use in the blood of one of the children she was raising.
According to the defendant, three children were born to a surrogate mother, and she gave birth to the two youngest children herself in 2018 and 2019. However, according to the investigation, after the operation in 2010, the woman could not give birth to a child. Moreover, the fact that there is no relationship between her and the five children confirms the conclusion of the genetic examination.
Her accomplice, 44-year-old Natalia Patoka, who also had 15 dependent children, created a shelter for mothers in difficult circumstances. She helped with the registration of children in the name of Loginova. She was also detained.
In addition, according to the investigation, a 30-year-old Uzbek citizen gave birth to a girl in April 2015 and a boy in March 2016, whom she handed over to Loginova. Using forged documents, she registered them with the authorized bodies as born by a surrogate mother.
The total number of defendants in the case exceeded 20 people. 15 minors were recognized as victims.
Over the past 10 years, the practice in such cases has really expanded, Vadim Bagaturia, a lawyer, former investigator of the prosecutor's office, and a specialist in criminal law, reminded Izvestia.
"The Investigative Committee has begun to uncover such crimes more and more often, because this phenomenon is quite common," he said. — Such cases are investigated, as a rule, for a year and a half, and then sent to court. They are heard in court for another year and a half.
Albert Khaleyan, a criminal defense lawyer and partner at the Vector Prime Moscow Bar Association, believes that the case may develop further in one of two ways.
"The most likely scenario is a guilty verdict," he said. — Cases of trafficking in persons, especially minors, are classified as serious and especially serious, and the state prosecution of them is usually very carefully structured.
However, he did not rule out the possibility of termination of the criminal case. But such a scenario, according to the expert, can occur if significant procedural violations are found at the investigation stage, unacceptable evidence, or if the corpus delicti is not established. The investigation will have to prove the purchase of children.
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