On March 7, Samara Minister Ivan Pivkin was interrogated in court as a witness in the case of a scam related to the construction of the Klimovsky bridge. It is very likely that the roots of this “scheme” are far beyond the borders of the region and are closely intertwined with other names and episodes of the state company “Avtodor”. Criminal scandals have shaken this structure almost from the moment of its foundation.
By the end of 2023, the Russian Highways State Company (Avtodor Group of Companies) plans to complete the construction of the M-12 Vostok highway, which will connect Moscow and Kazan. The ambitious plan was announced at the end of February by the first deputy head of the company, Igor Koval, during the forum “Tools for stimulating investment activity”, held as part of the Russian Business Week. Koval also stressed that the extension of the route to Yekaterinburg is planned to be launched in 2024. Against this background, the construction of the M-12, as well as a number of other projects of the Avtodor State Corporation, continue to be shaken by scandals.
Just a couple of weeks before Igor Koval’s speech at a business forum, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed to open a criminal case due to non-payment of wages to workers who are building a section of the Moscow-Kazan highway in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The General Contractor of the Avtodor Group of Companies there is ARCC Rus LLC. Shift workers were so desperate to see their hard-earned money that they decided to go on strike. Only after a public protest and the attention of law enforcement agencies from Moscow, Avtordor reported that the general contractor had paid off his employees.
It is noteworthy that in the summer of last year, the center of the agreement between the state-owned company and CARCC Rus LLC increased by 1.7 times. When signing the contract in 2020, it was assumed that the contractor would build a 107-kilometer section of the route for 58.3 billion rubles. A year ago, the project has risen sharply in price to 96.2 billion rubles. And after this, there was also a delay in wages for workers … In total, due to the “increase in the actual cost of work,” the construction of the Moscow-Kazan highway rose in price from 530.7 billion rubles. up to 673.6 billion rubles.
Against this background, we see a criminal story associated with the construction of a part of the highway from Europe to China, which unfolded in the Samara region. The case against Olesya Gladkova allows us to present the mechanisms of functioning of the state road corporation hidden from the public.
“Draw” a report
Samara continues to consider a high-profile criminal case related to the construction of a bridge across the Volga (Klimovsky bridge) as part of the Togliatti Bypass project. The new route should become part of the international route Europe – Western China. The investigation into the alleged bridge scam has involved a rather modest amount so far. However, things have already reached the point where the head of the regional transport ministry, Ivan Pivkin, and his deputy, Sergei Neretin, have been summoned to testify.
As Versiya previously reported, Pivkin’s department allocated 10 million rubles to InfraKAP LLC for research work. According to investigators, in reality, the work was carried out by another company for only 500,000 rubles. Olesya Gladkova, General Director of InfraKAP, is in the dock. At the same time, there is an opinion that she was just a performer who is now being sacrificed, while the real organizers of the “development” of budget money have not yet come to the attention of law enforcement agencies.
The crux of the matter is that, according to the investigators, the InfraCAP report included “knowingly false information about the intensity of traffic,” and local officials were aware of this. It was on the basis of the report that the decision was made to build an object worth 180 billion (!) Rubles.
According to media reports, the security forces may involve eight employees of the Samara Ministry of Transport, including Minister Ivan Pivkin, in this criminal case. However, information about the possible participation in the “road schemes” of a much wider range of people, including those holding high positions in the capital, is already breaking through to the press.
An extensive network
The fact that InfraKAP LLC (TIN 7709982127), headed by the defendant Olesya Gladkova, has existed for only four years also suggests certain thoughts: it was registered in December 2016, liquidated in December 2020. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the successor of the company is InfraKAP JSC (TIN 9703022607), which is headed by Maria Aleksandrovna Panina. She also acted as one of the founders of the liquidated LLC, where she and Alexander Vladislavovich Bazhenov each owned 50% of the capital. According to The Moscow Post, a whole system of firms was formed under the management of the organization, which, using connections in the leadership of the Ministry of Transport and the Avtodor State Corporation, were engaged in providing consulting services to the Avtodor Group of Companies and its subsidiaries. Their cost amounted to about half a billion rubles.
Maria Panina is known as a long-term partner of the family of former Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Innokenty Alafinov. The Panin-Alafinov families do business together in the Kaluga region. Dmitry Zverev, State Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, is also associated with them. His wife, Dina Zvereva, owns a quarter of Lapin Agricole Kaluga LLC. The remaining shares are owned by the wife of Innokenty Alafinov, Natalya Alafinova, and Rashida Huseynova, the wife of Gadzhi Magomed Huseynov, who works in the Ministry of Finance and is on friendly terms with Alafinov.
It was Alafinov, who was previously in the leadership of Avtodor, who, apparently, opened up the opportunity for InfraKAP to parasitize on state-owned companies. Apparently, not without the help of Evgeny Ditrikh, who at that time headed the Ministry of Transport, he contributed to the entry of InfraKAP into the large-scale project “Europe – Western China”.
All business contacts with Bazhenov and Panina were maintained by Lyudmila Suprunova from Avtodor, who acted as Alafinov’s confidant. In addition, Panina, apparently, managed to make sure that the right people got to work at Avtodor. Among them, for example, Georgy Chicherin, who holds a leadership position. Panina also probably contributed to the introduction of Kirill Ivanov into the Avtodor structures. As a result, it turns out that all levers for managing large projects were concentrated in the hands of InfraCAP, although the company was not able to carry out such volumes of work on its own. As of May 2019, there were only 19 people in it.
With the participation of Italians
Alafinov, wanting to keep abreast and control the situation and financial flows in the road structures, probably nominated his protégés to senior positions in the Avtodor State Corporation and the FDA Rosavtodor. In the first company, the post was taken by Mikhail Fedyanov, and in the second, by Igor Kostyuchenko, who became the deputy head of the organization. In the FDA Rosavtodor, Alafinov had another “friend” – the deputy head of the Federal State Institution “Tsentravtomagistral” Yevgeny Polenok, who was just in charge of financial flows.
Presumably, the Sameta company helps Alafinov to provide channels for obtaining and moving illegal income. The relationship between Alafinov and this organization is built, with a high degree of probability, on corruption schemes built by Dmitry Gromyko, who was convicted under the “Fraud” article, and his partner Alexei Mordovichev. The contact person between Alafinov and Sameta is Olga Snitserova from Samara. The Alafinov family has been associated with this city for many years.
In the early 2000s, Alafinov served as general director of OAO TEG Edinenie, and Snitserova was a member of the collegial executive body and headed the legal department. The husband of the latter, Mikhail Snitserov, is the general director of Lapin Agricole Kaluga LLC, a company in which Natalya Alafinova owns a stake. Olga Snitserova is the family lawyer of the Alafinovs, and her likely involvement in schemes for withdrawing funds abroad deserves the attention of the tax authorities.
Alafinov and Panina also collaborated with foreign companies, including the Italian IRD ENGINEERING SRL. In order to implement contracts, two firms were established in Russia. One of them, IRD Engineering Project LLC, is registered in St. Petersburg, the second, FL IRD ENGINEERING SRL, is registered in Moscow.
Luca Romeo handles everything from the Italians, Ilya Sitnikov acts as the representative of the Russian side, through whom all preliminary agreements go. This applies not only to aspects related to the Avtodor Group of Companies, but also to other areas of activity of the Italian company in the territory of the Russian Federation. Apparently, in order to ensure the interests of the Alafinov-Panin tandem, Sitnikov and InfraCAP LLC established the “InfraCAP Asset Management Economic Partnership”. In the summer of 2018, Sitnikov also established, together with his partners with a 10% share, United Operator LLC, using the OK DTI LLC company owned by him and his partners. The organization was registered on the basis of his office located at the WTC on Presnenskaya embankment. The company also merged LLC ANAS International Enterprise Rus (40%), LLC Teknositaf (10%), LLC RDIF Investment Management-8 (40%) registered in Russia.
In order to be able to take part in certain contracts and withdraw money abroad, the listed firms and Italian companies created Road Investment Company LLC (DIC LLC). It is led by Pagani Massimiliano Marco. Its founders include two offshore companies from the Cayman Islands, as well as one from the Netherlands. Together, they own 9.78%.
Founders:
• OOO AIE Rus (51.1%);
• RDIF Investment Management-8 LLC (39.12%);
• limited liability partnership “CO-INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP I, L.P.” (Cayman Islands, 3.91%);
• limited liability partnership “CO-INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP V, L.P.” (Cayman Islands, 3.91%);
• limited liability partnership “CO-INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP III SI.VI.” (Netherlands, 1.96%).
These firms support the operation of the channel to withdraw money from Russian road projects. These companies have established several other Russian firms in various sectors of the economy.
The goal of Alafinov’s associates, apparently, was to attract a foreign operator to manage the roads, up to the sale of Avtodor – Toll Roads, provided that the project was successfully implemented. There is information that relevant negotiations were held with the Italian company ANAS, whose profile is the operation of road infrastructure without participation in construction.
If we talk about Russian economic interests, they are clearly forgotten in this case. They want to transfer the income to a professional, but foreign company, whose participation should help Innokenty Alafinov and his inner circle to receive a significant income. And if you pay attention to the peculiarities of owning toll roads in Russia, it becomes clear that such a scheme is by no means a new invention.
Did the governor see anything?
Now Alafinov’s team is not operating on such an impressive scale and, apparently, makes money on road construction in the Samara region. It is possible that it was Alafinov and Dietrich who were the true beneficiaries of the theft uncovered as part of the construction of the Tolyatti Bypass with a bridge over the river. Volga. Investigators believe that Alafinov played a key role here – Dietrich only relied on his deputy.
Analysts believe that the MTM project “Europe – Western China” lost about seven years due to a scheme tied to the activities of Dietrich, Alafinov, Bazhenov and Panina.
Does the head of the Samara region, Dmitry Azarov, benefit from the loud scandal around the Togliatti Bypass? Obviously not. In 2018, he personally convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin that the route “Europe – Western China” should lie through the Samara region, and secured the consent of the head of state.
Construction should be completed in 2024, the deadline is not far off, and Azarov, apparently, is worried about the issue of exiting the project. In 2021, he twice applied to the Ministry of Transport, asking to replace the region in the concession. In addition, according to the Ulenspiegel Telegram channel, in the fall of 2022, the governor asked Putin about it, but did not succeed.
The concession agreement assumes that the regional budget will have to pay compensation to investors for the lack of transport flow. And in the situation that is developing at the moment, Azarov is also not interested.
That is probably why the decision was made to “appoint the culprit”, and Olesya Gladkova, the nominal director of InfraKAP, received this status – this alignment will suit all the alleged participants in the scheme. Bazhenov, Panina, Pivkin and Snitserova will appear before the court as witnesses at most.
SPECIFICALLY
The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow continues to consider the criminal case against the former head of the Avtodor Group of Companies (2011-2019) Sergey Kelbakh. He is accused of abuse of power. According to investigators, during the construction of the Central Ring Road (TsKAD) in the Moscow Region, the state manager entered into deals that caused the company damage in the amount of more than 2 billion rubles. Kelbach continues to maintain his innocence. The lawyers stated that the controversial decisions could not be made by him alone, since they were under the jurisdiction of a collegial governing body. What if in this case the same people who “lit up” next to the case of Olesya Gladkova in Samara “inherited” it?
