“Fuss of thrones”: who shakes the chair under the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Kolokoltsev

Behind the scandals in the entourage of Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, a fierce struggle for the minister’s chair may be hiding. Will Kolokoltsev survive and how to solve real (and not invented) problems in the department?

According to the correspondent of The Moscow Post in the Samara region, there was a scandal in the region that could come back to haunt Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev dearly. The day before, Dmitry Zubov, the son of Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov, was detained there. The young man is suspected of giving a bribe. Together with him, the president of the mini-football club “Dinamo Samara” Igor Karpov and the ex-director of the transshipment oil depot LLC “MO NTP” Vasily Ermakov were in the hands of law enforcement officers.

The background of the case is not disclosed, but the very fact of the detention of the son of the deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on charges of corruption produced the effect of an exploding bomb.

Igor Zubov is not just an influential functionary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and one of the closest associates of Vladimir Kolokoltsev. There were persistent rumors that Zubov Sr. had been on the short list of possible successors to the current minister for a long time. The detention of his son (even if the latter’s guilt is not proven) can put an end to possible ministerial ambitions.

Of course, a variety of theories immediately appear: from the banal “stealing” to “setting up”. Up to the point that Kolokoltsov himself could allegedly be the customer of a possible provocation in order to moderate the ambitions of his deputy (and those who can bet on him).

“Fighter against corruption”

Igor Zubov, who is responsible for all the normative and legal work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for many years “sculpted” the image of a principled fighter against corruption. Deputy Alexander Khintshein was one of the first to report on the criminal case of his son, and this surprised many, since, as part of the fight against corruption, he constantly interacted with Igor Zubov and knew him very well.

Deputy Minister Zubov became several times. He has held this position since 2001. At the same time, according to evil tongues, his very young son Denis created The Monumental Property in the British Virgin Islands.

It is still easily tracked on specialized sites. If this information is true, then back in June 2004, Zubov Jr. sold his share in this offshore to Igor Khudokormov, the owner of the Prodimex group, one of the key sugar producers and landowners in Russia.

Subsequently, this became known after a series of “leaks” of offshore documents, including the infamous “Panama Papers”. But the Russian law enforcement agencies were not interested in information about the deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the offshore business with which his son was connected.

As for Khudokormov, there were even suggestions that he would be a banal “purse” of the Deputy Minister of the Interior. There is no need to explain what kind of profit such a partner can bring to a business that does not have influential patrons in the police leadership.

In the case with Zubov Jr., no one has yet disclosed the background of the case. But it is known that both detainees with him are remarkable figures. And for sure they can tell a lot about the Zubovs (and about the local, Samara, police leadership).

According to Samara Today, the president of the mini-football club Dynamo Samara, Igor Karpov, was prosecuted for illegal business activities back in 2016. Specifically, for the production and subsequent sale of crude oil on the territory of the Kommunarsky license area (Kinelsky district of the Samara region) without obtaining a license for oil and gas production.

Then he managed to get off with a ridiculous fine of 350 thousand rubles. Ridiculous because the income from such activities could exceed the fines by ten or even a hundred times.

The second detainee, together with Dmitry Zubov, the former director of the oil depot Vasily Yermakov, also previously appeared in a criminal scandal. Allegedly, he was among the bribe givers in the case of the former high-ranking Samara security official Sergei Gudovanny.

Ermakov could be among those who gave money to Gudovanny for protecting his business. The total amount of funds received in the form of bribes, according to the materials of the case, was approaching 120 million rubles, the online publication 63.ru wrote about this.

That is, with a high degree of probability, the current case of Zubov Jr. can also be connected with the oil business. According to rumors, earlier he could be related to the oil companies from Moscow OS-NAFTA-V CJSC and Sistema-Neft OJSC. Both have signs of fictitiousness, both have already been eliminated.

Are they “digging” under Kolokoltsev?

The scandal with the Zubovs is promptly superimposed on others associated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and by and large, all this together resembles a massive attack on the inner circle of Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Recall that recently another of his close associates hit the media headlines. We are talking about the head of the Moscow Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, General Oleg Baranov.

At the beginning of the year, in the Tver region, a man, a huntsman, was shot while hunting with the participation of Baranov. Fortunately, he didn’t die. But it is still not clear who fired, the circumstances of the incident are unclear. It was immediately announced that a criminal case had been opened, and checks began. But there is no information about their results.

One thing is clear – if anyone thought that General Baranov himself could pull the trigger, then the evidence of this is unknown.

According to some, the interest in the situation could be Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who allegedly at one time was categorically against the appointment of Baranov as head of the Moscow police. Perhaps he would not mind agreeing this candidacy with the owner of the Kievskaya Ploshchad company, God Nisanov, who has long been credited with the patronage of the mayor. But Kolokoltsev allegedly still managed to “push through” Baranov’s candidacy.

Attempts to “probe” Baranov (or Kolokoltsev through Baranov) took place as early as 2019. Then law enforcement officers began an investigation into the theft in the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow. PASMI wrote about this (recognized as foreign agents on the territory of the Russian Federation).

Allegedly, the investigators were interested in the huge sums that the metropolitan police spent on creating systems for videoconferencing, meetings of the head office, district and district divisions.

Oleg Baranov got out of the hunting scandal without loss

Shortly before this, the crime prevention curator Alexander Melnikov was accused of fraud, RBC wrote about this. Then there were rumors that they allegedly wanted to get dirt on Vladimir Kolokoltsev himself from him.

Subordinates threw problems

All these scandals hurt the minister’s reputation. Apparently, that’s what it’s all about. Other high-ranking subordinates of Kolokoltsev come across almost on schedule. For example, today it became known about the initiation of a criminal case against the former head of the traffic police in the Primorsky Territory, Oleg Zubakin. Writes about this “Lenta.ru”.

According to investigators, he, along with a number of other defendants, organized a whole scheme of illegal issuance of driver’s licenses for a bribe. This is just the latest example, such cases are rampant throughout the country,

Ordinary police officers also add reasons to grab Kolokoltsev’s head. What is worth only a glaring case in St. Petersburg, where a couple of weeks ago, a traffic police inspector broke the arm of an on-duty operative from the criminal investigation department. All three were fired, but the scandal still rages.

Everyone has already begun to forget the monstrous story with the death of a male suspect in Tatarstan in the Dalniy Department of Internal Affairs in 2012. Meanwhile, violence in police stations continues.

In Bashkiria, the story of the rape of a young female interrogator in 2018 does not cease. As a result, the attackers Eduard Matveev and Lieutenant Colonel Salavat Galiyev were sentenced to seven years in prison. There was also a third participant in their history – also a law enforcement officer Pavel Yaromchuk. He received 5.5 years in prison due to an extenuating circumstance – his wife’s pregnancy. Mkset writes about it.

Another egregious incident occurred in Kaliningrad. There, at the end of January, a sentence was pronounced on former police officers in the case of the death of a detainee in the police department. A man was boiled alive in boiling water – pipes burst in the cell. The policemen on duty nearby did not respond to his requests for help. As a result, sadists in uniform were found guilty under the article “Negligence” and sentenced to imprisonment, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will have to pay 2 million rubles in compensation to the relatives of the tortured person. The Sekret Firmy magazine writes about the situation.

It turns out that they are trying to discredit Vladimir Kolokoltsev through his subordinates and “squeeze” him out of service?

There are many more such monstrous cases. Of course, ordinary employees are far from always to blame. The facts are that most of them receive a penny, constantly suffer bullying from their superiors, and in the end are content with the role of “scapegoats”. At the same time, hundreds of millions of rubles are invested in the psychological training of employees. However, the efficiency of these expenditures tends to zero.

And this is another field for a blow to Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Just look, soon he himself may become a defendant in a corruption scandal and will need the help of a departmental psychologist.