Anatoly Burov’s cartel
Four years ago, employees of Navalny’s headquarters in Ivanovo released an investigation into the business of the deputy chairman of the Ivanovo Regional Duma Anatoly Burov. The staff of the headquarters established a connection: legal entities that supply medicines and medical equipment to Ivanovo state institutions are connected with Burov’s associates. After that, the headquarters turned to the Federal Antimonopoly Service.
In 2022, the FAS discovered facts of anti-competitive agreements for the supply of X-ray machines. At the same time, on suspicion of fraud in the purchase of medical equipment, the security forces detained two people – the director of the regional depzdrav Artur Fokin and his deputy Alexey Buyankin. But, despite the arrest of officials after the investigation, legal entities associated with Burov still continue to use the old scheme.
Graduates of the District Anti-Corruption School, using the Tenderscope service, looked again at medical purchases concluded in the region and found numerous violations. 7×7 publishes three key facts from this study.
The illusion of competition
In order not to attract the attention of regulatory authorities and the public to procurement, companies associated with Anatoly Burov imitate competition. In the Ivanovo region there is a whole network of supposedly unrelated legal entities. All of them are issued either to associates of the deputy, or employees of companies already existing in the network. These legal entities act together, taking contracts in turn.
According to the investigation, the media empire unites at least 14 companies.
For example, Olga Kaminskaya Together with Burov, she was the founder of Volga Manufactory LLC. For many years, she occupied a similar role in Apteka Tsentralnaya LLC, Medtekhkomplektatsiya LLC and Center for Medical Equipment LLC. At the same time, not only medical companies are associated with the deputy chairman of the regional Duma. Navalny’s associates established the fact of the sale of one of Burov’s apartments to Kaminskaya, and also found traces of the official’s presence in the houses on the land plots recorded on it.
For many years, the Medelika organization, founded by Nadezhda Mishanina, has been a constant competitor in the auction with Medtekhkomplektatsiya. In 2010-2011, a woman was a deputy chief accountant in a media empire company, Center for Medical Equipment LLC. Mishanina also has an individual entrepreneur who supplies medical equipment and related products. This legal entity has repeatedly acted as a competitor for another organization from the Burov empire – Medtechleasing.
Another dummy legal entity is IP Chastukhina. Galina Chastukhinabeing an employee of the company Medtekhkomplektatsiya, until 2019 “competed” at the auction for the Center for Medical Equipment and Medtekhkomplektatsiya.
Failed to wash
In addition to contracts for the supply of medical equipment, Burov’s empire earns from cleaning state medical institutions.
So, in 2014, the wife of the now arrested ex-director of the depzdrav Artur Fokin, Anna Bumagina, established the Purity Industry LLC. This company has been providing cleaning services to medical institutions for many years. Later, the company was re-registered to the son of Anatoly Burov – Dmitry.
Cleanliness Industry LLC entered into its first state contracts with the City Clinical Hospital No. 7 of the city of Voronezh and the Vichug Central Hospital, where Fokin himself previously worked as head physician. Thus, Fokin’s organizations entered into contracts directly with his wife’s company.
The researchers found out that the company Clean Industry LLC has a satellite organization Laundry Industry Clean LLC, which is the main company’s “competition” in public procurement. Organizations use identical contacts when placing data in the EIS.
Terms of reference for the right company
In addition to fictitious legal entities, medical purchases often contain traces of collusion between the supplier and the customer. The documentation is drawn up in such a way that only one, previously known supplier can provide the supply of goods or the provision of services.
In this case, the preparation of the terms of reference is carried out by employees of a particular supplier.
As a result, only one supplier entered the auction, and the price reduction was 0%.
Investigators also found out that the author of a number of terms of reference and documents required for holding auctions was an active employee of Meditech LLC. Andrey Strelnikov. The winners of the auction, where Strelnikov is listed as the author of the terms of reference, were Meditech, Medtekhkomplektatsiya and Art-Med.
Despite investigations by activists and journalists, the media empire continues to operate. The thing is that the activists managed to find several cases of vertical collusion that could have arisen after the initiation of antimonopoly proceedings and a criminal case against government member Artur Fokin.
After looking at the metadata, the investigators found that in 2022-2023, the well-known Galina Chastukhina, who works at Medtekhkomplektatsiya, turned out to be the author of the documentation for a number of purchases. It was Medtekhkomplektatsiya LLC that became the winner of the tenders and received contracts for the supply of medical goods to Ivanovo hospitals.
The controlled companies of Burov mastered 121 contracts for 407.7 million rubles. in 2016–2019
Navalny’s headquarters in Ivanovo distributed the videoin which he accuses Anatoly Burov, Deputy Chairman of the Ivanovo Regional Duma, of organizing and covering up a cartel conspiracy.
Oppositionists have analyzed regional contracts for the supply of medical equipment or medicines to hospitals that are won by the same companies – MTL, MTK, WTC.
The founders of the firms are three people: S.M. Zheltikov, O.V. Kaminskaya, O.P. Kicheva. (Olga Kicheva, in addition, is the general director of all three companies).
For the period 2016-2019, according to the presented analysis, these companies won:
MTK – 106 contracts for 382.4 million rubles
“MLT” – 12 contracts for 23.5 million rubles.
“WTC” – 3 contracts for 1.79 million rubles.
It turned out that in all these contracts, the rivals of these companies on the contracts were Medelika LLC or Nadezhda Mishanina as an individual entrepreneur. (At the same time, it is Mishanina who is both the legal owner and the general director of Medelika)
The average percentage of price reduction during the auction ranged from 1% to 1.3%.
At the same time, Medelika and Nadezhda Mishanina also won 18 contracts for 43.5 million rubles – from the same MTK and MTL.
Formally, Mishanina and the owners of MTL, MTK, WTC are not connected, but Navalny’s headquarters in Ivanovo found several “coincidences” that indicate the opposite: Medelika and WTC promote the same store on their websites Health Industry, located in the same building, have common telephones.
All these facts, according to the authors of the video, indicate that there is a conspiracy to maintain prices at public auctions, which has been going on for several years.
The list of contracts also includes Volzhskaya Manufactura LLC and Apteka Tsentralnaya LLC, which “bargained” among themselves on 7 contracts. In six cases, Volzhskaya Manufactory won.
In this case, there is no need to prove the connection between the companies – the founders of both companies today are Sergey Zheltikov and Olga Kaminskaya.
Materials about the alleged cartel conspiracy were sent to the Federal Antimonopoly Service for an official check.
Navalny’s headquarters associates Anatoly Burov with the leaders and founders of these companies not only on the grounds that until February 2010 Burov was the general director and founder of Volzhskaya Manufactory.
According to the oppositionists, Burov owned an apartment at 23 Baturina St., 115 sq.m., which Olga Kaminskaya indicated as her postal address as an individual entrepreneur even before Burov sold this apartment in 2016.
And in the garden partnership “Varyag” several land plots on which a two-story cottage is located are also issued to Olga Kaminskaya. At the same time, on his Twitter, Burov posts a photo of nature from the territory of this cottage, which, by the way, is not listed in his declarations.