The man behind Vladimir Putin's notorious 'troll factories' who has been indicted by the FBI for pumping out anti-Western propaganda was jailed in Siberia before the Soviet Union collapse and then became a billionaire thanks to the largesse of the Russian president, according to an investigation

Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as 'Putin's chef, a 56 year old restaurateur has been raking in astonishing sums from contracts with the Kremlin government.

Criminal charges were filed against 13 Russians and two Russian companies on Friday, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into foreign election interference in 2016 drew blood by announcing that a grand jury had accused them all of helping President Donald Trump and maligning Hillary Clinton.

According to the indictment Prigozhin led the effort.

The FBI claims he used his businesses, Concord Catering and Concord Management and Consulting, to fund the Internet Research Agency, known as the 'Kremlin Troll factory' which was the vehicle for the alleged interference.

Billionaire: Yevgeny Prigozhin, 56, known as 'Putin's chef, a 56 year old restaurateur has been raking in astonishing sums from contracts with the Kremlin. The man behind Putin's notorious 'troll factories,' he has now been indicted by the FBI for trying to influence the 2016 election in favor of Trump

At your service: Prigozhinm was the go-to caterer for official Kremlin events. Above, Prigozhin serves Putin in 2011

Team Putin: Yevgeny Prigozhin with his wife and daughter Polina, wearing a T-shirt with Putin's image

Prigozhin paid the salaries of the other 12 defendants who worked for the research company, it is alleged, through this financial backing, which prosecutors say started in 2014.

The businessman has been nicknamed 'Putin's Chef' because he owns restaurants favored by Putin as the venues for state dinners.

His first business venture was selling hot dogs and 'bribing' street kiosk owners in St Petersburg to sell them.

He is the brains behind two huge office blocks where he pays trolls to disseminate a deluge of pro-Putin propaganda in social media and web comments in Russian and English.

Many staunchly pro-Kremlin and anti-Western messages appearing on mainstream news sites and social media in Britain, the rest of Europe and the US are believed to come from his army of online propaganda warriors who are paid around $600 a month to sway opinion.

An investigation by anti-Putin campaigner Alexei Navalny and his so-called Corruption Fighting Fund revealed the extent of Prigozhin's business empire and his murky criminal past in the Soviet era.

'He has luxury property, a yacht and a private jet,' said Yale-educated lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner Navalny, 40, who issued pictures and footage to back his findings.

'And the reason for his success is simple - he is Putin's chef.

'Once in 2001 he personally waited on his table in a restaurant and was liked by him.'

Soon he emerged as 'something like a court jester' in the president's circle.

'Later he was in charge of organizing Putin's birthdays.'

According to the indictment Prigozhin led the effort to impact the 2016 election. This is Troll office in Olgino_Novaya Gazeta

Navalny claimed that Putin's troller-in-chief has been given privileged access to supply food to large swathes of the Russian state, including the army, schools in Moscow, the Emergencies Ministry, as well as organizing the catering for major state occasions.

State contracts were 'showered on him' making him a billionaire, claimed the lawyer.

Prigozhin also provided the food for recent birthday celebrations of Putin.

Navalny claimed there is evidence of a cartel and obtaining 'super profits' from state services, has demanded a probe by the FSB security service.

'The family has a private jet and uses it very often,' he said in an online video exposing Prigozhin's fortune and lifestyle.

Then there is a lavishly furnished yacht, called St Vitamin, some 121 feet long, and costing $6 million.

Prigozhin's glamorous daughter boasted on an open social media account how the vessel had 'six bedrooms, a dining room, a terrace, a kitchen, rooms for the staff, two decks and a terrace'.

When she wed, Polina held the ceremony in Konstantinovsky Palace - nicknamed Putin's Palace - an official residence of the president in St Petersburg originally build by Romanov royal family.

'The most difficult thing was to get millions of natural flowers,' she said, explaining how they cascaded from the palace's ceilings.

The family home - a St Petersburg estate which includes a home for him and his daughter - costs an estimated $105 million, said Navalny.

But he also owns a cliff-top estate at Gelenzhik on the Black Sea, where Putin is also rumored to have a palace.

Prigozhin's yacht - St Vitamin - has six bedrooms, a dining room, a terrace, a kitchen, rooms for the staff, two decks and a terrace

Service for 10 ! The opulent dining room inside the billionaire's St Vitamin yacht

A bedroom on St Vitamin - one of six on the 121-foot yacht

Yevgeny Prigozhin's private jet, with the same letters M-VITO as on a picture from daughter Polina's social media account

Prigozhin's son Pavel on board the family's private jet

Prigozhin classic Cadillac is one of the many toys purchased by the billionaire

The Prigozhin property is in a 'forest nature reserve where building is strictly forbidden'.

He claimed: 'Probably it is forbidden only for ordinary people - but not for Putin's chef.

'The piece of land is 10 acres. A house with a swimming pool is on the top of a small hill.

'The sea view is marvelous.'

Pictures from the open social media accounts of Prigozhin's children show the dacha paradise including his yacht.

'This is a true guy from nowhere,' he said.

'In 1979 he was even convicted for robbery.

'And two years later he was convicted again and that time it was a more serious article of the Criminal Code.

'In total, he spent nine years in jail.'

According to a 2005 report in a St Petersburg newspaper Versiya, he was convicted of offences including 'robbery, violent robbery (and) fraud'.

'It was probably not the best beginning of a successful life story.

'But when the Soviet Union collapsed, capitalism was installed and our Prigozhin went into business.'

Prigozin once admitted his first business venture involved hot dogs, and paying off the mafia to be allowed to sell them in street kiosks.

'We made mustard for hot-dog right in my home. We had to pay gangsters $100 (American dollars) per each kiosk,' he said.

'At first he was a director of a food shop, then he opened a restaurant.

'And it was his restaurant that gave him his golden moment, making him one of the richest men in Russia.'

In 2001 the Russian president came to dine.

The sea view from the billionaire's estate near Gelenzhik at the Black Sea coast

Prigozhin's $15 million estate near St Petersburg. He became a billionaire, according to an investigation of the man known as 'Putin's chef' by anti-Putin campaigner Alexei Navalny

His daughter Polina's estate next to his own near St Petersburg

Prigozhin's basketball court and helicopter launching pad near his estate

Prigozhin said later: 'Vladimir Putin saw that I don't mind personally serving royal people. They are my guests after all.'

The future propagandist 'was joking and skilfully bringing napkins - and he was noticed,' said Navalny.

'At first he made friends with Putin's driver, then with Putin's guard and finally he became something like the court jester.'

Prigozhin was 'a great story teller, a charming and joyful man'.

He began organising Putin's birthday parties in 2003, and arranged Dmitry Medvedev's inauguration as president in 2008.

Navaly told Russians: 'If your child goes to school in Moscow, you should know that Prigozhin makes money on every lunch of your child.

'Just imagine the enormous size of his profit.'

His success with state contracts led to him becoming a billionaire in his own right.

'Our chef gets an exclusive contract to supply food to the Russian army,' he said, claiming this was a $2.2 billion contract.

'Lots of money. But still not enough.

'Putin helps Prigozhin to feed the Emergencies Ministry (a $63 million contract).

'Such a flow of money. But every flow can become even bigger.

'Putin's chef then became a housing and utilities expert.

'Now he is in charge of supplying all army unit towns in the country. Enormous amounts, there are hundreds of these towns, maybe a thousand.

'I lived in one of them for many years.'

Prigozhin is also now in charge of the housing and repairs in these towns and even the cleaning, while also building new army facilities, notably on the border with Ukraine.

'Within the last five years, the person whose only dignity is the fact that he is Putin's chef and is quite close to him, has received governmental contracts worth more than 200 billion roubles ($3.5 billion).

'One important detail: in this same period, he also becomes a Putin's troll.

Prigozhin's daughter Polina has posted pictures on her social media boasting of the wealth of her family

The 2015 wedding of Polina took place in Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna near St Petersburg_

Konstantinovsky Palace is nicknamed Putin's Palace - an official residence of the president

'He is exactly the one who owns two famous troll factories in St Petersburg, located in Olgino and on Savushkina Street.

'All those numerous pro-Putin comments are organised by Prigozhin's company.'

Navalny said he expected to be trolled for his revelations.

'I am sure that there will be their numerous dislikes to this video.

'This is the method, to make money on schoolchildren and soldiers and to spend it on pro-Putin comments.'

Navalny - who has voiced his ambition to one day succeed Putin as president - alleged: 'We have shown you just a small part, what the Corruption Fighting Fund could find in open sources.

'Probably this is enough to understand what it means - a success story in Putin's Russia.

'Unfortunately, almost always it means a story of robbing the budget, of making profits on people - schoolchildren and soldiers.

'And it is a story of haughty wealth, thrown into the faces of all Russian citizens.'

A spokesman for Concord Management and Consulting - the company linked to Progoshin said aspects of the Navalny report were 'not consistent with reality', and that the campaigner had misinterpeted the facts.

In particular, the company disputed without giving the correct figure the amount it had received in state contracts.

How the Russians meddled in the 2016 election A 37-page indictment released Feb. 16, 2018 by the U.S. Department of Justice accuses 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies of conspiring to compromise the most recent U.S. elections by running online campaigns disguised to look like home-grown activity. A federal grand jury charged that they: posed as both real and nonexistent Americans to operate social media pages and groups supporting Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders

worked to undermine support for Hillary Clinton and at leas two of Trump's Republican rivals

conducted 'information warfare' by stealing identities and buying ads on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter

created niche groups on Facebook to attract hundreds of thousands of Muslims, evangelical Christians, people associated with Black Lives Matter, and Americans from specific regions of the country

organized real-life political rallies to support Trump and oppose Clinton

created Twitter accounts with names meant to appear linked to the Republican Party (one had more than 100,000 followers)

used foreign bank accounts to route more than $1.25 million per month to the project from companies owned by a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin

never reported the spending to the Federal Election Commission as campaign expenses

never registered as foreign agents with the Justice Department

bought space on computer servers based in America so all their Internet traffic would appear to be domestic Advertisement

'Lawyers who represent the interests of Yevgeny Prigozhin are now working at legal evaluation of the declarations made by Alexei Navalny and further legal moves are not excluded,' said the spokesman.

'At the same time we suppose that Yevgeny Prigozhin will not use his right to appeal to the court,' added the spokesman.

The 'troll factory' (Internet Research Agency) was founded that same year. Though Mikhail Bystrov was named as its owner and CEO, Russian journalists learned of Prigozhin's connection to it early on.

What specifically prompted him to do it or if anyone put him up to it remains unclear.

Prigozhin, 56, is known as Putin's chef because the Russian president favors his catering and takes foreign leaders to his restaurant

In its genesis, the factory's employees had one job - to post complimentary post on social media about Putin and the government and besmirch the names of their opponents.

When Prigozhin's association to the Internet Research Agency was revealed, he faced increased scrutiny from critics.

An article in 2015 highlighted how the factory worked and the conflict Prigozhin's relationship to Putin posed.

With the bad press about him growing, Prigozhin attempted in 2016 to have himself 'erased' from the internet. It coincided with the introduction of a new bill which gave an individual the right to be forgotten.

The law was pushed by Putin and states that websites must delete content such as news stories about an individual if it breaks the law, is false or is 'obsolete'.

To date, Prigozhin has filed 15 lawsuits against the Russian search engine Yandex which is uncensored.