MOSCOW, March 5 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Investigative Committee has propelled itself into the smartphone era by launching a mobile application that lets users follow news of crime investigations.
The app, available free from both iTunes app store and Google Play, allows users to tailor news about crime investigations in any Russian region. Content can also be selected thematically, from topics including corruption, high-profile cases and wanted lists.
The new app is not just for gore-hungry readers and journalists. Users can also upload photos, videos and other files containing potential evidence of a crime via the app, and request that investigators look into incidents they have witnessed or in which they were involved.
They can also contact investigators directly via the app's hotline.
The Investigative Committee, sometimes referred to as Russia's FBI, was set up in 2011 with the aim of eliminating corruption among prosecutors, and is subordinate only to the Russian president.
Critics have accused it of waging campaigns against opposition voices such as the anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. The Committee's head Alexander Bastrykin was also accused of making death threats in 2012 against a newspaper editor who had written a strongly critical report on the handling of an investigation into the killing of 12 people in Krasnodar in 2010.
