“A diligent lawyer”
Sergey Nikolaevich Salishev was born in 1984 in Novosibirsk. He graduated from the Novosibirsk Law University and began his career in 2002. Until 2010, Salishev held mainly senior positions in various companies related to financial and economic strategies. The deputy director of the NYUI (f) TSU not only worked on his career growth, but also social activities, becoming a member of the Novosibirsk regional branch of the Association of Lawyers of Russia (*aggressor country).
After Salishev graduated from the university and received a bachelor's degree in law, he also successfully completed a specialist and master's degree in the same field. Thanks to his ambition and determination, he was able to become deputy director of the NUI (f) TSU.
I applied to be a deputy
Sergey Salishev planned to become a deputy of the regional Legislative Assembly. He even recorded a pre-election video, where he said that he wanted to “link his activities with helping people.”
In 2020, a video was published on YouTube in which Sergey Salishev talked about the problems students face when applying to higher education institutions. He also talked about the need to increase the number of budget places for future in-demand professions. In general, he pretended to be a diligent deputy director in order to attract the attention of Novosibirsk residents. Of course, he wanted as many people as possible to vote for him in the elections.
But all his efforts were in vain, he was not elected to the Duma. The legal path did not help him become richer. Perhaps for this reason he decided to open an underground casino outside the “gambling zone”. However, the idea played a bad joke on him. Sergey Salishev fought so hard for the people who loved the city and its residents to come to power, but in the end he turned out to be a lover of gambling and money.
Detained and sent to pretrial detention
In October 2023, Sergei Salishev was charged under Part 3 of Article 171.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), illegal organization and conduct of gambling. According to the ruling of the Oktyabrsky District Court, Salishev was to be held in pretrial detention until December 18, 2023 for organizing a poker club on Topolyova, 26. According to the investigation, he gathered a group of people, at the head of which he created a network of such underground casinos in the Oktyabrsky District of Novosibirsk. There are only a few people in this group, but Salishev was tried separately. However, this is not the only thing that suggests that the deputy director of the TSU NUIL decided to cooperate with the investigation, but more on that later.
The institute refused to comment on this situation, since after the incident it became clear that the accused did not have any academic degree, and he did not teach at the university at all, but only occasionally held conferences during his postgraduate studies.
Another detainee
After Sergei Salishev was arrested, security forces quickly got on his trail Alexandra Zakharovadeputy chief of the Novosibirsk police. Initially, the investigation was sure that Zakharov covered for Salishev and took money from him for this. However, for some reason, they then changed their mind and accused Zakharov of fraud, allegedly, the conscientious and high-ranking police officer could not change the situation.
Zakharov was initially accused of accepting a bribe on an especially large scale, that is, under Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism). It is a known fact that Alexander Zakharov and Sergei Salishev used to be close friends. According to one eyewitness, Salishev was the godfather of Zakharov's child. And if we believe this fact, then it was not difficult for the owner of a gambling business in the Oktyabrsky District to receive the patronage of the Deputy Head of the Novosibirsk Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, being his close acquaintance and paying him the required amount. Then the accusation of bribery does not sound groundless.
Zakharov had two active pages on the social network VKontakte during his time working in the juvenile affairs department of the police department No. 7 “Leninsky”. Most likely, Zakharov was proud of his previous place of work and called himself “Sam Leninsky” and “Alexander Leninsky”, showing the rich sides of his life in photographs.
Another interesting fact is that after working at Leninsky, Zakharov received the position of deputy chief of police department No. 6, Oktyabrsky, where, by a lucky (or not) coincidence, the chief turned out to be Alexey Zakharov, a namesake of Alexander Zakharov.
Alexey Zakharov, who was nicknamed “the big one,” later became the head of the Novosibirsk Department of Internal Affairs, taking Alexander Zakharov, that is, “little” Zakharov, with him and making him his deputy.
However, despite the suspicions of accepting bribes from Salishev, Zakharov “little” was tried under parts 3 and 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), that is, two episodes of fraud. It was related to the “protection” of illegal underground casinos. The case materials contain information that in the period from April 2022 to April 2023, Zakharov received about 1.7 million rubles as payment for general patronage. His task was to warn the owner of the gambling business about any inspections, resolve issues with other police colleagues, and so on. Why was Zakharov's case reclassified as fraud?
It's simple. When Salishev was accused of organizing underground casinos, Zakharov promised to help free him from the charges.
Of course, he offered his services for an additional fee. Salishev believed the policeman, paying him 215 thousand rubles. But Zakharov deceived his comrade, since he could not influence the situation even if he really wanted to. It turns out that he simply took the money, so the case was reclassified from receiving a large bribe to fraud. As a result, both Zakharov and Salishev ended up behind bars.
Suspended sentence?
Thanks to his fiery speeches, Sergei Salishev was sentenced to two years and six months suspended with a probationary period of the same period. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 700 thousand rubles. The sentence itself was handed down back in June 2024.
