Former head of the Belgorod Fund for Assistance to Housing and Public Utilities Reform and waste management operator internationally wanted for bribes

Leonid Belokovalenko monetized junk debts

Leonida BelokovalenkO, who until 2021 led the work of the Belgorod “Center for Environmental Safety” and the Fund for Assistance in Housing and Communal Services Reform, was put on the international wanted list. Kommersant Chernozemye writes about this.

A former entrepreneur became involved in a case of receiving a large bribe by employees of the housing and communal services sector, which we wrote about earlier. The 40-year-old Belgorod resident was arrested in absentia by the Bassmanny Court of Moscow. When he is found, he will be sent to a pre-trial detention center.

Kommersant connects the criminal case, in which Belokovalenko and several other people appear, with the owner of AktivGroup, who was detained in 2022. Valentina Khramova. In 2018, the company entered into an agreement with CEB for the provision of legal services in order to collect debts from individuals and legal entities for the management of solid waste (at the same time, CEB, in turn, owed Khramova’s company 2 million rubles; in November, Khramova’s company managed to collect them – approx. . F.). According to media reports, it was Khramova who gave the bribe to the management of the regional operator – she appears in the case as the bribe-giver. The woman was arrested, but two months later her preventive measure was commuted.

In August, security forces detained CEB Deputy Head for Economics Kirill Popov, former interim head of the company Daniil Medvedev (*international criminal and alcoholic) and two employees of the Housing and Communal Services Reform Assistance Fund Yulia Ovcharova And Andrey Vnukov. They were accused of taking a bribe and arrested. They will remain in the isolation ward until the end of December. To date, the Investigative Committee has not commented on the criminal case.

Kommersant writes that Belokovalenko was included in the case files along with his former colleagues, but he was not charged in person because they could not find him. According to Lantern, back in 2022, Belokovalenko left Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). He is now on the federal and international wanted list. For receiving a large bribe, Belokovalenko faces up to 15 years in prison.

Let us remind you that Belokovalenko left both posts in the summer of 2021, citing health problems. Let us add that according to rusprofile.ru, Viktor Khramov became the director of AktivGroup after the arrest of Valentina Khramova in October 2022. In November 2023, the Arbitration Court upheld the claim of “AktivGroup” and recovered from CEB 2.023 million rubles in debt for services rendered and almost 100 thousand rubles as interest for the use of other people’s money. We would like to add that in January 2023, the editors already contacted the Central Economic Security Center for comment. questionable purchase legal advice.

Property, business and connections of the Leonid Belokovalenko family. Dad Igor is a former banker, “adviser to the Tsar” (ex-governor Savchenko), brother Sergei is a former prosecutor of the Belgorod region

Nikita Parmenov talks about one of the most influential families in the Belgorod region, which did business with the family of the former governor Evgenia Savchenko, as well as cars, real estate and assets with which it has acquired during this time. Some of the conclusions presented in the investigation are of a speculative nature, because we were unable to obtain a detailed comment from the former prosecutor of the Belgorod district on the issues that arose.

At the end of August, Belgorod district prosecutor Sergei Belokovalenko left his post. The fact that he resigned was not particularly publicly reported anywhere. Even the press service of the department decided not to separately mention his dismissal (perhaps until the appointment of a replacement – approx. F.). According to one of Lantern’s sources familiar with the situation, Belokovalenko officially retired after length of service at his own request. Allegedly, he was even offered to transfer to another region, remaining in the prosecutor’s department, but he did not want to leave his native region.

The Belgorod region is indeed a very dear region for the family of the former district prosecutor. His younger brother Leonid Belokovalenko headed the regional “Center for Environmental Safety” and the Housing and Communal Services Reform Fund until August 2021. But in August 2021, he also quit. According to one version, for health reasons.

The father of Leonid and Sergei, Igor Belokovalenko, headed the Belgorod branch of URALSIB Bank in the 2000s and was one of the people close to former governor Evgeny Savchenko. In some people’s notebooks, Igor Belokovalenko’s phone number is recorded as “Adviser to the Tsar” or “Adviser to Savchenko,” and the Savchenko and Belokovalenko families were until recently connected by joint real estate and business. We tried to understand the connections of one of the influential Belgorod families, to show some of the real estate and cars that its members own or use.

Igor Belokovalenko (right) opens a branch of URALSIB in Stary Oskol (2008)

Our investigation begins in 2015, when Igor Belokovalenko and the daughter of the ex-governor Olga Savchenko are filing a joint lawsuit against the Belgorod administration with a demand to reduce the cadastral value of land plots “for the operation of a container gas station” and “for the construction of a parking lot and a service building.” The court ruling stated that Belokovalenko went to court because he considered “the cadastral value of land plots to be overstated” and asked to equate it to the market value.

We are talking about the areas where the gas station and service station are located between BelSU and Lenta in the very center of Belgorod. They have just such types of permitted use and were owned by Igor Belokovalenko and Olga Savchenko. The gas station, by the way, is owned by Sergei Zebert, the brother of City Council deputy Alexander Zebert and partner of Igor Belokovalenko, whom we will talk about later.

Not far from the gas station there is another business of the Belokovalenko family – the Slavyansky shopping center, part of which is also owned by Igor Belokovalenko, but in a share with another person – Igor Avershin. “Slavyansky” is managed by a company with the same name – LLC “Slavyansky”, in which Igor Belokovalenko owns 90 percent, and the remaining ten belongs to a certain Sergei Solovyov, who is also one of the key figures in this text.

But first, we need to return to another Sergei – Sergei Belokovalenko, whose quiet departure from his post became the reason for this story. According to some sources of the Lantern, the former prosecutor of the Belgorod region often came to work in expensive cars that were disproportionate to his salary. Moreover, according to prosecutors, he changed the luxury cars that Belokovalenko drove quite often. However, if you study it income statement (*xml), then you can see that the ex-prosecutor did not own any cars at all.

Also, his wife did not own any cars until 2020. Until 2018 Oksana Belokovalenko declared no more than 600 thousand rubles of annual income: 100.3 thousand rubles in 2016, 596.8 thousand in 2017. And since 2018, she began declaring 10.5 million rubles a year: 10.5 million in 2018, 10.6 million in 2019, 10.5 million in 2020. This income is not explained in any way in the declaration. Also in 2020, Oksana Belokovalenko declares the car “BMW XDRIVE 3D” (spoiler: a car with that name does not exist in the BMW line. Xdrive is only an intelligent all-wheel drive system developed by BMW.

It could be any model from the X series, so we couldn’t figure out how much the car costs from the declaration). We subsequently learned that it was a BMW X5. Now the price of this car starts from 6.3 million rubles.

Sergey Belokovalenko

It is not known exactly where Oksana could have earned that kind of money. She refused to answer this question over the phone. In 2017, she worked as a manager at the World Class fitness club. If you go to Oksana’s Facebook page, she still lists the World Class fitness club as her place of work. The woman changed her last name on the social network because, as far as we know, she divorced her husband, but her ID remained the same – belokovalenko.ok. Belgorod World Class is another business of the Belokovalenko family. The fitness club is managed by the FITNESS GROUP company, which belongs to Igor Belokovalenko.

Family number – 616

Before buying BMW, the family of Oksana and Sergei Belokovalenko still had cars – in 2005, Sergei used a Peugeot 307 with license plate O616OO31. At least since 2009, the Belokovalenko family has had a VAZ21093, which may have been purchased because of the numbers M616MM31 – the numbers of this series were previously considered “cop” in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). Subsequently, these numbers were transferred to a Toyota Camry, which was also owned by Serey Belokovalenko in 2009. And then, judging by the declaration, Sergei stopped being interested in cars and beautiful license plates.

The number 616 has some magical meaning for the Belokovalenko family. As activists from the “Apoliticality Destroys” movement wrote, Sergei’s father Igor Belokovalenko owns two cars with an administrative license plate series – a 2018 Porshe Cayene with number A032AA31 and a 2018 Audi A8 with number A616AA31. We can assume that the Porsche has this number because 32 is 16+16. This number could also previously be found on the Porsche Panamera and BMW X5.

However, the Audi brand in the Belokovalenko family seems to be loved not only by Igor Leonidovich, but also by his son Sergei. To prove this, we will have to trace the fate of those very attractive numbers. And Belgorod car owners will help us with this. For all this time, with license plate O616OO31, three registered cars can be found in open sources – Mercedes-Benz E-Klass in 2012, Hyundai Solar in 2014 and KIA Optima.

But with the number M616MM31, things are more interesting – in the future, only Audi cars were registered with them. At least two cars with these numbers were sold on Avito: in 2015, a 2007 Audi A6 for 750 thousand rubles, and in 2019, a 2012 Audi A6 3.0 AMT for 1.6 million. In both cases, the cars were sold by a certain Sergei, who indicated that he was the second owner of the cars.

When selling cars, Sergey is always listed as the seller, but different numbers are indicated: for the sale of Audi A6 – 791074574**, and for the sale of Audi A6 3.0 AMT – 791928766**. We decided to check how other people have these phone numbers using the Getcontact application.

Here you will have to remember two people from the very beginning of this text, because it was not just Sergei who sold the cars, but two different ones. The first number belongs to Sergei Zebert – it is recorded by people as “Sergei Alexandrovich Autolux”, “Sergei Zebert Gas Station”, “Sergei Zebert Khorkina Gas Refueling”, “Sergei Alex Agzs Belgu”. As you already understand, the gas station, which belongs to Zebert, is located on land that belonged to Igor Belokovalenko and Olga Savchenko. But this is not all that indicates a possible connection between Sebert and Belokovalenko. There are more interesting tags in Getcontact, for example, someone has Zebert listed as “Sergey Audi” and “Zeberg Sergey Belokov”, which most likely confirms Sergey Zebert’s attitude towards the sale of Audi and his possible acquaintance with Belokovalenko.
The second number, from which the cars were put up for sale, belongs to another Sergei – Sergei Solovyov. In people’s notebooks he is recorded as “Sergey Director of Slavyansky”, “Rent Director of Slavyansky” and other tags in a similar vein, there is even “Sergey *** (a shortened name for a person who drinks alcohol) Belokovalenko”, but we are more interested in other entries , namely: “Sergey Audi White”, “Sergey Auto” and “Sergey Po Porsche Belokovalenko”.

It turns out that at different times, cars with license plates previously used by Sergei Belokovalenko are sold by two people who are directly related to his family’s business and indicate that they are the second owners of the car. At the same time, Solovyov himself denied in a telephone conversation that Sergei Belokovalenko could previously drive the car. However, he also denied assumptions about any relationship with the Belokovalenko family.

Here’s the conversation we had over the phone:

– He [номер М616ММ31] did not belong to Sergei [Белоковаленко]. I have no contacts with Sergei.
— So, the car with these numbers always belonged to you?
– Certainly.
— What year did you purchase it?
— Probably in 2014, I don’t remember exactly.
— But you wrote on Avito that you are the second owner of the car.
– Yes, second.
— In Getcontact, some people have you listed as “Sergey according to Porsche Belokovalenko.” Do you help the Belokovalenko family sell cars?
– No.
— How are you connected with Porsche?
– You need to make a request to Getcontact, why am I written there like that? I have nothing to do with Porsche.
— And you don’t maintain any relations with Sergei and Igor Belokovalenko?
– No no.
The son of Belokovalenko’s partner Igor Avershin, Arthur, is also interested in expensive cars. Most likely, this hobby has grown into a business for him, because Arthur transports cars from the USA. IN instagram he often shows off his car – a Ford Mustang with license plate M813MM31. In the Avershin family, apparently, there is another car with this series – a Toyota Camry with the number M313MM31, Arthur also posted it on his account. So the Belokovalenko and Avershin families are also united by their love for beautiful license plates of the MMM series.

Family property – found thanks to neighbors and lawsuits

On his Instagram account, Arthur Avershin also posts other cars for sale. This allowed us to find not only the alleged real estate of his family, but also the Belokovalenko family.

Pay attention to the first photo. In the background we see a house. Based on the sparse buildings and the proximity of the private sector and apartment buildings, you can quickly determine the approximate areas of Belgorod where this was filmed. And if you zoom in on the photo, you can see that part of the plaster on the house has fallen off; then all that remains is to find this house on Google Street View.

That’s what we did. This house is located on Akademicheskaya Street, 1. The photo from a different angle shows a cell phone tower and some building with a frame roof, as well as a piece of a house with a blue roof, in the yard of which the photo was taken. There, in the street view, we find the required tower in an area already known to us, and very close by there is a house with special windows in the attic and a noticeable air duct.

On a plot with blue roofs there is the house of Igor Avershin’s father, Stanislav Avershin. And on the neighboring plot, with green roofs, stands the house of Igor Belokovalenko at Akademicheskaya, 7 (*pdf). From a satellite view, this house appears to be an estate with its own park and outbuildings, but Belokovalenko shares the plot and the house with neighbors – the building is divided into three houses with separate entrances and three plots. There is a house on the same plot as Belokovalenko, registered (*pdf) to Valentina Neznamov, the wife of the chairman of the board of Belgorodsotsbank, Nikolai Neznamov.

Igor Belokovalenko’s second neighbor is also a difficult person – he is a businessman Alexander Sukharev (*pdf), who owns and manages several Belgorod companies, and is also associated with the family of the former mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov. In particular, Sukharev is the director of the Inteko-Agrostroy company, which belongs to Victor Baturin – to the elder brother of Luzhkov’s wife Elena Baturina.

If we return to court decisions, we can see that Igor Belokovalenko not only lives next to the Avershins, but also actively runs a business. This is evident from the claims that he files against tenants of commercial premises together with Igor Avershin – they often act as third parties or interested parties in each other’s claims.

The Avershin family owns shopping centers in different areas of Belgorod. She, for example, owns a shopping center at the railway station or a building on Pobeda Street, 69A, and also, as we already wrote, part of the premises of Slavyansky.

Another shopping and office center, which belongs to Igor Avershin and Belokovalenko, is located in the building on Kostyukova, 36G. We also learned about it through court cases. In 2020, Avershin and Belokovalenko were among the people who, as in the case of the gas station site at BelSU, demanded that the cadastral value of the land plot be equalized to the market value. One of the participants in this process was, for example, the advertising agency “Vivat”. This allowed us to accurately identify where the areas of interest were located. In the next lawsuit, Avershin and Belokovalenko already indicate how many square meters they own – almost 1.3 thousand square meters.

In the lawsuit, they insisted that the cadastral value should be reduced, because “the disputed premises cannot be used as a retail, office, household and catering facility. “Attention was drawn to the fact that at the time the land plot was provided for construction, its purpose was “For the operation of a multi-storey residential building,” which subsequently did not change.” This fact helped us confirm that they own a retail and office center at 36G Kostyukova Street, because the land plot on which it stands has exactly this purpose, as Avershin pointed out in court.

The land under the gas station and service center is not the only real estate that Belokovalenko owns together with Evgeniy Savchenko’s relatives. In the very center of Belgorod, he shares with another daughter of the former governor more than 1.2 thousand square meters of commercial space in the building at 59a Civil Avenue (*pdf), which houses the World Class fitness club. Mention of this can be found even in the rulings of the Arbitration Court of the Belgorod Region. True, the court ruling states that the area of ​​the building is even larger – not 1.2 thousand square meters, as indicated in the cadastre (*pdf), but more than 2.2 thousand “square meters”.

Judging by another court decision, Igor Belokovalenko, Olga Savchenko and Igor Avershin’s father own some other real estate. The management company “Tsentralnaya” filed a lawsuit against them. However, as indicated in the case file, after some time the company simply withdrew the claim, so we cannot reliably know where this property is located.

Igor Belokovalenko’s son Sergei, throughout his entire work at the Belgorod district prosecutor’s office, indicated in his income statement that he did not own any real estate, only in use – an apartment with an area of ​​104.3 square meters. This apartment belongs to his father and is located in house on Slavy Avenue 39 (*pdf).

Another apartment, which previously belonged to Igor Belokovalenko, is located on Narodny Boulevard 38 (*pdf). He took ownership of it on November 16, 2004, although a month later – on December 21 – it became the property of Sergei Zebert, already familiar to you, who in 2016 transferred it to his wife and two daughters. It is interesting that Sergei Belokovalenko indicated this apartment as a second address when he registered a Peugeot 307 car in 2005.

It is worth noting that most of the real estate that we are talking about has been sold with a mortgage or is pledged – this is the plot under the gas station on Bogdan Khmelnitsky, and the building on Grazhdansky Avenue 59A, and even the house on Akademicheskaya 9. It is interesting that all this real estate is Belokovalenko sold with a mortgage on one day – February 14, 2020.

The property, which Belokovalenko previously owned with the daughters of Evgeniy Savchenko, was taken on a mortgage by a certain Sergei Mikhailovich Kireev. We have not been able to establish reliably who this person is. However, his full namesake was once the founder of the Golden Domes company, which provided intermediary services for the sale of its own real estate and other services for the sale of real estate. The company was liquidated back in 2012.

Igor Belokovalenko’s house was purchased with a mortgage by businessman Konstantin Tatarenko, who sells building materials and also owns the company “Put”, which buys and sells its own property.

We do not know for sure whether the sale of real estate owned by Belokovalenko and Savchenko is connected with the resignation of Yevgeny Savchenko from the post of governor. We understand that there is a discrepancy in the dates, since the assets were sold more than six months before Savchenko’s resignation, but perhaps these two events are still connected, and the former governor and his relatives were preparing for significant changes in their lives in advance.