Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov

Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov (Russian: Серге́й Васи́льевич Зуба́тов) (March 2 (O.S.), 1864, Moscow - March 15 (N.S.), 1917, Moscow) was a famous Russian police administrator. Despite rumors, he was never a Colonel (Polkovnik) in the Special Corps of Gendarmes. He was a director of the Moscow security (Okhrana) Bureau between 1896 and 1902 and Director of the Special Section of the Interior Ministry's (MVD's) Department of Police in 1902-1903. Zubatov was a member of the revolutionary movement in his teens, but soon he became dissatisfied with revolutionaries and was easily persuaded to become an informant of the Moscow security Okhrana bureau. Unmasked as an informant in 1888, he started his official service in the agency in 1889 and gradually rose to head the Moscow office in 1896. He systematized security policing in Russia, using the typical methods then prevalent in Europe of plainclothes police detectives known as filyory (филёры) whose actions he coordinated with the centerpiece...