Brothers Ananievs tear off the budgets of the FIU?
The Ananiev brothers who fled from Russia do not give up their attempts to get close to the PFR budgets again through their partner Sergei Matsotsky?
According to The Russian Crimes correspondent, according to unconfirmed information, documents were seized in the office of the OTR system integrator due to delays in payments from the Pension Fund for children and pensioners in August-September. The company has already acquired a criminal train after the arrest last year of the co-owners of Merlion, which owns a 60% stake in the company.
OTR, along with the bankrupt “Technoserv” of the scandalous Ananyev brothers, was engaged in the EGISSO project for the FIU – the Unified State Social Security Information System. Because of this project, in fact, now the Ananyevs have to hide from Russian justice abroad. But the former first deputy head of the Pension Fund, Alexei Ivanov, was less fortunate – he ended up in the dock.
And behind all these stories, the shadow of IT entrepreneur Sergei Matsotsky is visible, who just wanted to acquire OTR shortly before the arrest of the co-owners of Merlion. It is Matsotsky who is considered by some to be the main lobbyist for the transfer of all social payments to the EGISSO, as well as a long-time ally of the Ananyevs. Now he began to clear the field for himself more actively?
According to the authors of the TAdviser portal, allegedly on November 16, FSB officers arrived at the office of the OTR company on Dmitrovskoye Shosse. In the course of the activities carried out by them, documents could have been seized as part of the operational-search activities relating to social payments, which were carried out with delays.
The main legal entity of the company is “OTR 2000”. Among the founders there are Denis Krikunchik, Alexey Bryzgalov, Alexey Genya, Dmitry Rybakov and Capital Trade LLC – the latter controls 60% of the company and is associated with the scandalous Merlion. Back in 2017, he entered the capital of the company through another related structure, Mirst, and then simply shuffled the assets.
According to Rusprofile, OTR has received government orders worth 2.2 billion rubles from the Pension Fund, and in total, its portfolio of contracts totals as much as 33.7 billion. What can I say, the asset is really very attractive. So it is not surprising that last year Sergei Matsotsky, a well-known Russian IT businessman, co-founder and former co-owner of IBS, paid close attention to him.
Negotiations on a possible purchase began in the middle of summer 2020, but they were very difficult: the owners of OTP did not want to sell their stake in the company. Discussion of a possible deal continued until October and led to the fact that the owners refused to sell the stake.
Matsotsky was going to return to them soon with a new proposal that might seem more attractive. But at the end of October, the owners of Merlion were arrested as part of a criminal case of an attempt on the life of the former CEO of the company, Vyacheslav Simonenko. Shareholders Aleksey Abramov, Vladislav Mangutov, Boris Levin and Oleg Karchev are involved in this case. The Moscow Post previously wrote about this in detail.
But what if Matsotsky is behind their criminal problems? Moreover, he also negotiated the acquisition of control in Pro IT Resource, which is also owned by Merlion. That is, there are at least two reasons for a probable “attack”.
explosive growth
And now, what is noteworthy, as soon as Matsotsky turned his attention to OTR, the company began to receive more and more contracts, and already in the summer of this year, the Ministry of Labor demanded that all social payments be transferred to the same EGISSO. And this despite the fact that, according to some sources, the system has become outdated in 5 years of development.
In addition, OTR has a strong position in the financial block of the Government: it develops large information systems for the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Treasury. Among its key projects are services for the operation of the state public finance management system “Electronic Budget” and the automated system of the Federal Treasury, as well as the development of the latter. The largest contracts include contracts for the development and operation of a unified automated information system for trading in Moscow.
It is clear that without certain garters in power structures, it is difficult to achieve such an impressive result. And here it is worth remembering that Matsotsky is considered a good friend of Mikhail Mishustin, who comes from IT, having a specialized education and work experience. And the formation of Mishustin as the second person in the state for the IT industry has become truly reforming – since then more and more state support has been attracted to it.
Mishustin showed his commitment to information technology as head of the Federal Tax Service. Under him, the department achieved impressive success through the development of the IT direction: it is believed that in many respects it was thanks to the informatization of the Federal Tax Service that it was possible to significantly increase the collection of taxes in Russia. At the end of 2018, the service reported the maximum increase in tax revenue over the past five years.
Mr. Matsotsky, on the other hand, did not hide his admiration for Mishustin, saying that he was able to carry out reforms in the work of the tax system, unique for the entire world (!) Practice.
It is possible that Matsotsky with OTR just wanted to “jump” into the “composition” rushing to the budgets for the development of IT. And does not give up attempts so far?
Old friend Brothers Ananievs
It is all the more remarkable that Mr. Matsotsky knows the Ananyev brothers from Technoserv very well, which, in fact, was engaged in the supply of IT services for the Pension Fund until it was pushed aside by OTP. In particular, in 2007, the Borlas consulting group, whose president was Alexei Ananiev, and IBS, then headed by Matsotsky, announced a friendly merger and the creation of a combined company that was supposed to occupy more than 20% of the IT services market in Russia. Together with the same Alexei Ananiev, Matsotsky often spoke at industry events.
Sergey Matsotsky
So it is possible that in fact Matsotsky could have had access to the PFR money for a long time – Technoserv was a long-term contractor for the state structure for the implementation of IT solutions and the supply of equipment. The firm developed especially under the former head of the Fund, Anton Drozdov, who was replaced by Maxim Topilin. They tried to blame Drozdov for a lot of things, but in the end, out of his entire team, only his first deputy, Alexei Ivanov, had serious problems.
As The Moscow Post previously wrote in detail, Ivanov was detained and arrested in the fall of 2020. Together with him, the director of the department for work with state structures of the Technoserv company, Alexei Kopeikin, was detained, and after that, six more high-ranking employees of the PFR.
All employees of the Fund are accused of taking bribes from the former shareholder of Promsvyazbank Alexei Ananyev and structures controlled by him, among which was the IT company Technoserv. Money to officials, according to the TFR, was transferred for information about upcoming public procurement and assistance in winning the auction, Kommersant wrote.
The materials of the investigation also include Vasily Vasin’s Redsys, who himself is now under the guns of the security forces. Previously, its co-owner was the Cypriot offshore Ralieva management ltd, and 100% of the authorized capital was pledged to PSB, owned by Alexei Ananiev. Today, all 100% of the company belongs to the same Cypriot offshore, behind which, as it is believed, stands Vasily Vasin – according to rumors, a trusted person of Ananyev.
The following picture emerges: the Ananyevs fled over the hill, Ivanov and his associates are on trial in a bribery case, and probably a trustee, brother Vasin, fights off claims of concealing funds to pay off tax arrears.
But there may be another active person in this story, Sergei Matsotsky. And the stake on him is understandable: in the field he has great authority, he did not appear in high-profile scandals, and he may also have the talent to establish contacts with “whoever is needed”.
It is with his hands since last year that the story around OTP has been unfolding with a criminal odor? If this is true. it is possible that his longtime partners Ananievs also had a hand in this.