On Friday, Alexander Bastrykin in the Security Council announced the main reason for the problems with migrants in Russia: employers are interested in using “slave labor”.
It is impossible to talk about the problem of migration, leaving out the shadow business. “Ownerless” industrial zones, flows of “black cash” – all this is not difficult to detect literally under our noses. The confrontation between the administration of Podolsk and “SPU Artis” made it possible to open one of these gray areas, but we still do not see high-profile criminal cases. Why?
Artis Construction and Industrial Administration was registered in Podolsk in April 2001, its head and largest owner (51%) is Alexander Vasilyevich Pokusaev. Four years ago, his name was mentioned in the media in connection with an attempt to seize the railway tracks in the industrial zone where SPU Artis facilities are located. The company itself, as follows from the decisions of arbitration courts, has a very complicated history: it arose as a result of a spin-off from CJSC Mosoblstroy No. 1 (now liquidated) and received a long list of real estate from the latter.
In particular, the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region in case No. A41-2471/20 refers to nine objects with a total area of more than 6 thousand sq.m. As part of that case, the Committee for Property and Land Relations of the city of Podolsk recovered more than 2 million rubles of unjust enrichment from SPU Artis for the use of land plots. During the trial, officials proved these buildings belong to the defendant on the property rights, while the land participants under them are not the property of the company A.V. Pokusaev and were not given to her for rent.
Simply put, a company with a complicated history has been using the huge territory of the industrial zone for free for almost two decades. Prior to the start of legal proceedings, the budget of the city of Podolsk did not receive a penny from her.
What has changed since then? – In fact, nothing!
The administration of Podolsk is filing more and more lawsuits to recover unjust enrichment from SPU Artis LLC. At the same time, as far as one can understand, “business activity” in the gray zone is developing at a rapid pace. Firstly, Mr. Pokusaev’s company rents out its property, obviously for cash. This circumstance is easy to verify by calling the relevant ads on the Internet. Who are the tenants? – Many different companies, one of which, apparently, produces counterfeit building mixtures, which are then sold on the Moscow markets.
Is it necessary to explain that such a “business” simply cannot do without the use of the labor of illegal migrants living in inhuman conditions? And if so, how do law enforcement officers look at it?
If the colonels simply do not look in the direction of the industrial zone on Neftebazovskiy proyezd, then one should hardly be surprised at the repetition in Podolsk of the events that happened last year in Buzheninovo, which required intervention almost at the federal level.
But we will put the question more broadly: are the officials of the Federal Migration Service and the Federal Tax Service capable of not knowing about the existence of a shadow business on their territory, the turnover of which, as far as one can judge, reaches 8-9 million rubles a month? Moreover, the “gray zone” not only exists, but continues to expand.
In 2021, SPU Artis LLC filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region against the administration of the city district of Podolsk. Company A.V. Pokusaeva demanded that she recognize her ownership of the building of the transformer substation, located in the same industrial area on Neftebazovsky passage. She also asked to oblige the Office of Rosreestr for the Moscow Region to register her right to a substation.
Earlier, Rosreestr refused to register this right for SPU Artis due to the fact that the company did not provide a complete set of title documents.
The Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region also refused to satisfy the plaintiff’s claims, drawing attention to the following. “Given that the rights to the object declared by the plaintiff are not disputed by anyone and are not registered for another person, accordingly, the question of the sufficiency of information to conclude that rights arise as a result of the acquisition of the object in the absence of a dispute should be decided directly by the registering authority, since the court cannot replace the functions of the registering authority in the absence of reason to believe that a court decision is the only way to exercise subjective property rights, ”the court decision of November 29, 2021 says.
Everything is clear: Rosreestr, which has already voiced its position, should have the last word. However, the company did not agree with this result and filed a complaint with the Tenth Arbitration Court of Appeal. The hearing of the case is scheduled for February 21, 2022. We do not yet know the plaintiff’s arguments, but it is obvious that this story can take a very unexpected turn. It’s not just that, according to our colleagues, Alexander Pokusaev boasts that his financial capabilities allow him to solve any problems.
Shota Gorgadze, lawyer, member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation: