A criminal scandal flares up in Yaroslavl – a village deputy and the son of a local parliamentarian, Alexander Bortnikov, is accused of drug production. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
– Illegal actions, in which he is accused, are beyond reason and defy any explanation! – this is how the press service of the Yaroslavl branch of the United Russia party reacted to the arrest of 28-year-old Alexander Bortnikov, who was listed as a deputy of the small Nekrasovsky rural settlement. Party members still cannot believe that Bortnikov, together with two young accomplices (26 years old and 21 years old), organized a real drug laboratory in a private house for the production of a synthetic drug – mephedrone. Today Bortnikov was expelled from the party for discrediting.
According to the security officials, the drug lab started working in early December last year. Unsuccessful businessmen were detained by operatives of the regional FSB at the production site – in the house of a gardening partnership in the Gavrilov-Yamsky district of the Yaroslavl region. Interestingly, the operation took place on January 16th.
The Kirovsky District Court told Life that the defendants in the case were taken into custody for two months, until March 15. Three kilos of mephedrone found in the house are considered to be a particularly large amount, therefore, if all the charges remain in force and the case ends with a verdict, Bortnikov and his company will not be released very soon.
According to the official statement of the Investigative Committee, the detainees have already been charged under the fifth part of Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code (illegal production of drugs by a group of persons by prior agreement on an especially large scale). They face up to 20 years in prison or even life imprisonment. On February 3, the defendants in the case tried to challenge the arrest, but the court left them in custody, despite the fact that Bortnikov has a minor child.
In the video filmed by the operatives, the detainee Alexander Bortnikov at first does not want to pronounce his middle name – Igorevich. Since his father, 51-year-old Igor Dmitrievich Bortnikov, has been a deputy of the Frunzensky district of the city of Yaroslavl since 2012, heading the municipal Commission for the management and disposal of city property. Bortnikov Sr. is also a member of United Russia, the president of the Yaroslavl tennis club, the creator of the Animal Care Fund and a major real estate businessman. The deputy’s son, caught red-handed, was officially employed by his deputy in the Elite Quarter real estate agency.
In September 2022, elections to the Yaroslavl City Duma will be held, but Bortnikov Sr. is unlikely to return there – the charges against his son are quite serious. The MP has so far refused to talk to reporters about this.
An apple from an apple tree?
Bortnikov Sr. was also mentioned in scandals. Local media wrote about a resident of Yaroslavl, Alexander Lensky, who in 2009 decided to improve his living conditions and was deceived. According to the man, he turned to Kumir LLC for legal support, which at that time was headed by Igor Bortnikov. Allegedly, Bortnikov personally invited Lensky to the VIP room and convinced him to sign an unfavorable contract for him, because of which he lost almost three million rubles and was left without an apartment.
It is reported that the criminal case on fraud was suspended several times due to the inability to identify the accused. The last time it was resumed was in 2014, when Lensky was officially declared a victim. By that time, Bortnikov had already sat in the municipal council. The case stalled again.
