Iron Manufactory of the Urals LLC, owned by Mikhail Bolotin, faced a collapse in revenue. Bolotin is a business partner of the head of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, director Nikita Mikhalkov.
They have a common business – the diamond processing enterprise ChelProm-Diamond LLC, which previously shone in the scandal with diamond smuggling, and is now bankrupt and is in bankruptcy proceedings.
According to our sources, through the company they could not only smuggle, but also launder and legalize funds of dubious origin.
Details – in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post in the Chelyabinsk region.
Mikhail Bolotin is a well-known machine builder, founder of the Concern Tractor Plants holding. In 2022, he was convicted of embezzlement of 90 million rubles allocated for the design of the Kurganets infantry fighting vehicles. Bolotin pleaded guilty, actively collaborated with the investigation, and instead of a maximum of 10 years he received only 2 years in prison.
He was supposed to be released just in 2023. Nikita Mikhalkov knows how to choose partners.
Yes, and Bolotin too. In 2012, he came into conflict with his former Tractor Plants partner Semyon Mlodik, believing that he had stolen technical documentation from the concern that could be used in competing production. Subsequently, Mlodik was convicted of a scam with bills of exchange of RZHDS-region LLC for 273 million rubles.
The diamond question ruined them
Mikhail Bolotin and Nikita Mikhalkov became partners in 2008, when the director bought 10% of ChelProm-Diamond LLC. At the same time, Bolotin himself turned out to be 20%, another 20% – from Nikita Mikhalkov’s son-in-law Albert Bakov, and the remaining 50% were for Alexander Sintyaev. Today, this ratio persists.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
LLC “ChelProm-Diamond” was created in 2001 on the basis of the Kusinsky diamond processing plant (Chelyabinsk region) by entrepreneur Alexander Sintyaev.
The plant was founded back in the 70s of the last century. According to the author of the blog “Notes from the Ural Hinterland” on the Zen platform, the privatization of the enterprise in the 90s was illegal and with the active participation of the then chairman of the regional Committee for State Property Management Vladimir Golovlev, with the assistance of which the entire asset was estimated at only 3.1 million rubles.
For five years after Mikhalkov entered the capital of ChelProm-Diamond, a scandal erupted – the FSB opened a criminal case on the fact of illegal trafficking in diamonds by this structure. According to investigators, the company illegally sold 11.6 thousand diamonds to the offshore company Dundela Limited, registered in Gibraltar.
In 2012, a $10 million diamond purchase and sale agreement was signed between ChelProm-Diamond and Dundela Limited. Later, the deal was reduced to $1.25 million. In July 2013, ChelProm-Diamond LLC handed over the goods to the buyer.
However, the sale of precious stones from the Russian Federation is regulated by separate legislation. The Diamond counterparty did not have registration and representation in the Russian Federation, which violated the Federal Law “On Precious Metals and Precious Stones” and led to the initiation of a case. That is, we are talking about smuggling.
Mikhalkov himself claimed that he learned about this from the media, and does not receive dividends from the diamond processing business at all. Even more strange was the message of the press service of the company, where they explained that Mikhalkov was not familiar with the management of the LLC at all, and did not appear at meetings. Maybe he is not familiar with his son-in-law Albert Bakov?
Of course not when you need a comrade “shaggy bumblebee” does not remember anyone.
Note that the investigation of the criminal case was never completed. It was left without defendants. Could Nikita Sergeevich’s high position in the Russian establishment contribute to this?
None will be the wiser
At the same time, ChelProm-Diamond LLC had other problems – the company’s debts to Chelyabinsk Vestbank exceeded 130 million rubles. As a result, the structure’s raw materials and finished products were arrested by bailiffs. Moreover, the latter faced the resistance of employees when trying to enter the enterprise. Who could give such a team, except for top management and owners?
At the same time, the same almost 12 thousand diamonds that took place in the smuggling case were identified as material evidence. Although they remained on the company’s balance sheet, it was impossible to return them to circulation. As a result, the company was generally incapacitated, and in 2015 it was bankrupt.
Mikhalkov, his son-in-law Bakov and others desperately tried to return at least money for them from Dundela Limited. The courts lasted nine years. The last trial ended at the beginning of 2023 with the complete defeat of the owners of ChelProm-Diamond LLC – neither diamonds nor money.
Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru/Document/Pdf/d3ed3c15-e4e0-422e-9f9a-449ba5c271a4/5d56fd14-c584-4048-a262-67c508240033
At the same time, Dundela Limited is a co-owner of peat mining assets, engine production and trade in forestry equipment, and may not be related to the trade in precious stones at all. There were rumors that this structure could even be affiliated with Nikita Mikhalkov. However, there was no confirmation of this.
They said that the allegedly nominal owner of Dundela Limited was a certain Joseph Solomonovich Boim, who from August 10, 2010 was appointed adviser to the president of the Tractor Plants concern Mikhail Bolotin.
There is no confirmation of this information. Western sources indicate that a company with a similar name was liquidated in 2018, a certain David Purdy is listed as its director.
Among other things, Joseph Boim was the bankruptcy trustee of AMZ, which was part of the Tractor Plants concern. And he, Boym, was the bankruptcy trustee of Chelprom-Diamond LLC.
Such coincidences are rare. It can be assumed that Boim could be affiliated with the owners of the LLC, and the bankruptcy was manageable. None will be the wiser?
The company allegedly rumored that Muscovites (Mikhalkov and his son-in-law?) Could export to Gibraltar all diamonds produced by the South Uraltsamai to Dundela Limited at a reduced cost, and then resell them at a market price. As if falsified certificates on the cost of diamonds purchased from AK Alros could even be made for these purposes. Our people are proud of fiction, of course, but there is no smoke without fire.
They made themselves pleasant
At the same time, Mikhalkov and Co were clearly not left without pants after the bankruptcy of ChelProm-Diamond LLC. As part of the bankruptcy of the LLC, his property was sold. In 2017, more than 41 thousand diamonds worth 63 million rubles were sold at the auction. They were bought by the Moscow company “Trading House Beautiful Things.” At the same time, the cost of diamonds could be almost halved.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
Until June 2021, the co-owner of Trading House Beautiful Things LLC was Iron Manufactory of the Urals LLC. The very enterprise of Mikhail Bolotin, which in 2023 faced a collapse in revenue, with which we began the material. It turns out that they sold diamonds from bankruptcy proceedings to themselves, and even at a possibly very low cost?
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
In July 2023, Trading House Beautiful Things LLC entered the liquidation procedure on the basis of inaccurate information provided by the owners and management of the enterprise in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Here is the end of the fairy tale. And the “diamond hands” of Nikita Sergeevich turned out to be long and callous. A person clearly knows how to make money.
