On 9 May 1938, Belenky was arrested and accused of having taken part in a counter-revolutionary plot organized by former NKVD officers, including Genrikh Yagoda. He was sentenced by the Special Council of the NKVD (OSO) to five years of Gulag imprisonment. In 1940, his sentence was cancelled[5] and his case was re-opened, with the eventual outcome that he was executed by firing-squad on 16 October 1941.