On 22 October 2008, it was reported that French police investigating the case managed to find the previous owner, who gave a statement that he broke a mercury barometer in the car shortly before selling it to Moskalenko. Peter Lavelle, a journalist for "Russia Today" stated that Moskalenko admits she had not cleaned the car since she bought it from the antiques dealer in August 2008. The revelation came ten days after the initial report, which saw Kremlin critics and some media outlets, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Lev Ponomaryov, the "Washington Post", and "The Globe and Mail", accusing Russian security services, and Vladimir Putin himself, of orchestrating the poisoning in an attempt to intimidate or eliminate the vocal critic of the Kremlin.