After daughter of two celebrities wins ‘The Voice Kids,’ Russian state TV channel asks Interpol partner to investigate

On April 26, the final vote in Russia’s branch of the international franchise The Voice Kids, a song competition reality show, was announced. Ten-year-old Mikella Abramova won with 56.5 percent of viewers’ votes. Abramova is the daughter of the Russian singer Alsou and the banker Yan Abramov.

The following day, Russia’s state-owned Pervy Kanal, or Channel One, told journalists it had organized an investigation due to “certain anomalies” in the final vote. Today, TASS reported that the channel has hired the cybersecurity company Group-IB to conduct a “technical forensic analysis of calls and SMS messages to examine possible cheating in the vote count.”

Group-IB is an official Interpol partner and has collaborated in the past with Russian state services like the FSB, the Internal Affairs Ministry, and the Investigative Committee. Pervy Kanal sources said the full results of the company’s investigation will be made publicly accessible.