The high-profile arrests of top managers of the St. Petersburg Vodokanal, which fundamentally shook construction circles in 2022 due to bribes from developers, received their rapid continuation in the new year 2024. Deputy General Director for Logistics was detained for his love of money – Vadim Chernyshov. What arrests can still be expected in this regard and what awaits the whole “water” story – we will tell you in our material.
Elite service
Commercial structures did not appear in the Vodokanal case just now. Today the Investigative Committee is following the trail, gradually unwinding the tangled tangle of kickbacks for connections. After the arrests in 2023, it became clear that the investigation would focus on the composition of the “organized group.”
Then how do we already wrote, a number of intermediaries were arrested who transferred bribes from developers to the shaking greedy hands of specialists from Vodokanal. In particular, the director of St. Petersburg Water LLC allegedly gave testimony. Maxim Krasavinwho gave 10 million rubles Leading specialist for connection management at Vodokanal Anton Weber (in the interests of the developer “FSK Leader North-West”). The general director of TDN Istok LLC was locked at home by the court. Nariman Hasanov. He was accused of giving a large bribe – 310 thousand rubles received a specialist in managing the property complex of the water supply department “South-East” of the State Unitary Enterprise “Vodokanal of St. Petersburg”.
If you look at this case a little from above, it turns out that the investigation considers the State Unitary Enterprise “South-Eastern” as an organized group that was created with “for the purpose of systematically receiving bribes.” In general, everyone benefited from the illegal enrichment scheme except the state: developers received documents for commissioning new residential complexes, but did not pay hundreds of millions for the necessary reconstruction of networks. Instead, they paid bribes for amounts tens of times less, “gilding the pen” to interested parties from the State Unitary Enterprise “Vodokanal of St. Petersburg”. Even Rosstroyinvest, as they say, did not shy away from such schemes. Let us mention that the interests of this company, as evil tongues say, are included in the circle of concerns of the chairman of the St. Petersburg construction committee Igor Kreslavskybecause he once served as head of the board of the Rosstroyinvest Group of Companies.
Now the convenient scheme of “cooperation” has turned into a scheme for criminal enrichment. The investigation, of course, has its own interests – the more crowded and thicker the volumes of criminal cases, the larger the investigation into the activities of the embezzlers, the more the property of the accused is converted into state income, and this means more encouragement from very high authorities.
Therefore, there is no one to expect mercy from anyone involved here. Needless to say, as they whispered on the sidelines of the State Unitary Enterprise “Vodokanal”, the place is delicious and there are a lot of “sweet schemes” there. The investigation dug deep and discovered a new corruption scandal. This time with government procurement.
Help from Kompromat Group:
“Quart” of 500 million
The other day, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of St. Petersburg sent under arrest Vadim Chernyshov, Deputy General Director – Director of Logistics of the State Unitary Enterprise Vodokanal of St. Petersburg. He is accused under Art. 286 part 3 p. c, e (exceeding official powers with causing grave consequences out of selfish or other personal interest). The criminal case against Chernyshov concerns the deliberate inflation of the cost of work during competitions, which were won (according to the investigation) by a controlled organization, a certain LLC “Kvarta”.
According to preliminary estimates, the damage caused is equal to 125 million rubles. The investigation believes that Chernyshov received information that the branch of the “Engineering and Innovation Center” of the State Unitary Enterprise “Vodokanal” planned to hold a competition for the provision of cleaning and maintenance services for buildings and adjacent management areas. To put it in dry official language, the deputy general director decided to “provide Kvarta LLC with a clear advantage over other participants in the competition.” Further, according to the investigation, truly magical things happened with the tender documentation and technical specifications, after which in May 2023, when a real competitor appeared at the tender in the form of the company Urban Systems LLC with an offer to conclude an agreement for 402 million rublesput pressure on members of the competition expert group and forced them to reject the application of Urban Systems without any reason.
As they say on the sidelines, after this, the harassed members of the expert group hastened to leave their jobs through dismissal, because they were terribly afraid that they would become involved in a criminal case, and, in general, they did the right thing. Since this criminal case eventually appeared. So, Kvarta LLC, as a result of manual manipulations, became the winner of the competition and entered into a contract for cleaning 528 million rubleswhich turned out to be higher by 125 million rubles. The investigation qualified this expenditure of budget funds as “the onset of grave consequences.”
Controllable income
The court granted the investigation’s request and sent Chernyshov into custody until mid-March 2024. It is still unknown what documents the investigation seized after the searches, but apparently the trace of where the large millions went will eventually be found.
After all, according to rumors, it is not so much the games with tenders that are interesting, but the ultimate interests, and the arrested deputy general is unlikely to be one of them. According to some reports, among the top managers of Vodokanal there are said to be many people whose careers were ensured by the notorious Konstantin Goloshchapovwhich is like we wroterecently fell out of favor in high circles.
We would like to remind you that the investigation began into the contracts of the state unitary enterprise and suspicious stories with the connections of new buildings almost immediately after the legendary head of Vodokanal passed away. Felix Karmazinov. The odious vice-governor stumbled miserably over the latter at one time Marat Oganesyanso much so that he went straight to a pre-trial detention center for many years of legal proceedings.
Today, the all-powerful Karmazinov is no longer in the world, and Goloshchapov, as knowledgeable people believe, is not likely to return to the banks of the Neva. Law enforcement officers, whatever you say, in the case of Vadim Chernyshov still have a chance to get to the bottom of the truth. Did the contractors of SUE Vodokanal really have their shadow masters, and if these masters were, who were they?
As for Vadim Chernyshov, in the end he will most likely face the same thing as his former comrades at Vodokanal and under criminal prosecution. Namely, the reclassification of his labor exploits from exceeding official authority to the more serious offense of bribery. Count on the fact that he will succeed as Evgeniy Tselikov, it is not possible to receive a reduction in the severity of the crime and reclassification as a “minus”. Tselikov managed to fight back at the station. 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) (negligence) and his case was dismissed in May 2023 due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Chernyshov’s episode is fresh and the “dance” with the investigation and return of the case to the prosecutor’s office will not happen. Not that kind of music.