The prison was built in 1881 in the Lefortovo District of Moscow, named after François Le Fort, a close associate of Tsar Peter I the Great.

In the Soviet Union, during Joseph Stalin's 1936–38 Great Purge, Lefortovo Prison was used by the NKVD secret police for mass executions and interrogational torture.

[1] Later Lefortovo was an infamous KGB prison and interrogation site (called an "investigative isolator", or СИЗО: следственный изолятор) for political prisoners.

In 1994, the prison was transferred to the MVD; from 1996 to 2005, it was under the jurisdiction of the FSB, a KGB successor agency.

Letters can be received but are read by prison officials.