Judicial procedural May in St. Petersburg promises to be eventful. In addition to various high-profile processes, there will be another one – inconspicuous. The banal case of the fraud of a criminal authority actually hides a whole almanac about the extortion of money from detainees in the Gorelovo pre-trial detention center by the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Crime Echo of the Homeless
In May last year, 2021, a young prisoner from the detention center (let’s call him Maxim) of SIZO-6 Gorelovo began to cut off the phones of his parents. A young man went to jail because of one story. A cheerful girl threw a party in her expensive apartment on the Petrograd side, and when she woke up in the morning in an unsightly way, she wrote a statement about rape. There were many guests, but of all of them only Maxim, at the time of the incident, turned 18. He “dropped in” to the Gorelovo pre-trial detention center under the relevant article. Soon the detainee’s father (a person not in poverty) began to receive SOS signals from his son. The frightened offspring asked to throw money on cards to strangers so that he would not be beaten. Dad broke up with 900 thousand rubles. Then, the pressure increased. As the victim himself said, his son “was shown a video where people with twisted jaws lie in a cell in a pool of blood.” In order to save the boy from a terrible fate, his father was invited to talk with a certain Michael.
The latter, in fact, offered his father an inmate, for 7 million immediately get rid of all the problems. Firstly, to live comfortably in prison, secondly, to cut off the term, and thirdly, it can help ruin a criminal case. In other words – any whim for your money. Such a breadth of soul impressed Father Maxim, and he went to FSB. At the meeting where the father went, carefully prepared by the operatives, there was a meeting of a certain Mikhail Filimonov and “a dummy of cash in the amount of 1.5 million rubles within the framework of the “Operative experiment” event (as they will later write in the investigation’s decision). It turned out to be a former prisoner of the same pre-trial detention center Gorelovo. The criminal authority from the gang of the notorious homeless child – the legend of St. Petersburg crime Andrey Khloev.
According to one version, Khloev became a legend because he is supposedly a nephew Vladimir Kumarin-Barsukov. Like it or not, but the fact that the homeless child eluded Themis for years remains a fact. It has not yet been possible to put him behind bars for many years. All his arrests ended in his release, to the surprise of not only the security forces, but also his brothers in the way of life.
Companions Andrey Khloev, for example, all the same Filimonov, are not far behind him in terms of “miraculous” deliverance from prisons and convictions. He was in the pre-trial detention center dozens of times, but he has only one criminal record, from March of the current month, 2022. He was tried in the Crimea under Art. 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm). Received a suspended sentence. Under the “operational experiment”, the clever authority fell, in fact, being under criminal prosecution under a completely different article (theft). And even in the pre-trial detention center in Gorelovo, he managed to sit “with taste”, but left it on a “undertaking not to leave”. And now he, too, is free. Although he is a defendant in another criminal case (about the divorce of the father of the arrested boy) under Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – fraud.
head to head
The focus of luck here is solely in the dexterity of thinking Mikhail Filimonov. Those same six months that he spent in the Gorelovo pre-trial detention center, he did not spend in vain. Faced with the head of the police department, he quickly organized a press hut in the pre-trial detention center. They shook mostly “fat” hucksters or those whose relatives were wealthy. The profit, of course, was shared with the management of the pre-trial detention center.
A few months later, Filimonov left Gorelovo, but the press-hut business remained alive, because “their own people” remained there. Thus, 18-year-old Maxim got into circulation with the greedy uncles in uniform and enterprising bandits. The story didn’t end there. Not wanting to “sit down” already on a specific major charge, Mikhail Filimonov went to negotiations. Operatives, as you know, always give the interlocutor a choice. Filimonov was offered a “change” – a head for a head. His head for the head of the one from the leadership of the Gorelovo pre-trial detention center, who rested on the chests of goods stolen from the inmates. Misha Filimonov went to a meeting with the head of the SIZO-6 operative unit Timur Vodopyanov stuffed with equipment. Major Vodopyanov, being a grated man, did not go to the meeting himself – he sent a friend. However, the comrades from Liteiny nevertheless received the necessary information and Vodopyanov was arrested.
Official communiqués have been released: “A criminal case has been initiated against the head of the operational department of the FKU SIZO-6 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, a major of the internal service on the grounds of a crime under Part 6 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (taking a bribe). From the materials of the criminal case, it follows that from July 2018 to the present, the suspect has systematically received bribes from representatives of persons held in custody for improving the conditions of detention in the pre-trial detention center, totaling at least 10 million rubles.”
If any of the respected readers watched the incomparable series “Escape”, then they probably remember how warden Bellick ended up in his native prison, already as an inmate. The security forces have a peculiar sense of humor, because now, as they say, Major Timur Vodopyanov“steamed” in his native Gorelovo, awaiting trial …
hand washes hand
However, the most fun now is not at all Timur Vodopyanovand his former boss Evgeny Dekterev. On January 15, 2022, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison in a strict regime colony for taking bribes. The investigation found that in 2018-2020, Dekterev received money from relatives of prisoners. For this, he created more comfortable conditions for the prisoners – he allowed the use of mobile phones, provided additional products, more comfortable beds, and did not punish for violations of internal regulations. In the verdict, bribes counted more than 2 million rubles. But everyone understands that this is only a small part of what he managed to loot.
SIZO-6 “Gorelovo” is located on Zarechnaya street, 22 in the historical district of Gorelovo in the Leningrad region. The isolation ward has existed since the 2000s; earlier, the buildings were used as a correctional colony. People on remand from the southwestern regions of the Leningrad region, as well as from the Krasnoselsky, Kirovsky and Nevsky regions of St. Petersburg, are usually placed here. “Gorelovo” many times became a target for media publications. In 2009, a scandal erupted here, which put an end to the so-called “Malenchuk era”. That year, in the Smolninsky District Court, five officers from SIZO-6 were convicted, who were beaten in the prison hospital named after. Haas prisoner Ilya Biyazova and forced other convicts to rape him. All employees of the service were then convicted and sentenced, depending on the severity of the deed, from 1.5 to 10 years in prison for “abuse of power.” After the scandal, the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service for St. Petersburg was removed from office Vladimir Malenchuk, who fought for his employees in all instances and stated that he “vouched” for the convicted employees. Together with his dismissal in isolation, as wrote the press“the era of Malenchuk ended”, associated with numerous tortures of prisoners.
But this is only a small illustration of the daily life of this detention center. Today, defendants are mostly beaten, intimidated and tortured for the sake of testimony and money. The corruption scandal of this kind, which we wrote about, is not the only one in the Gorelovo pre-trial detention center. In 2011, a scandal occurred again, which was called “an echo of the era of Vladimir Malenchuk.” A prisoner was killed in Gorelovo. The “senior in the cell”, lied, beat and humiliated fellow inmates if they did not give the due “tribute” in favor of the administration of the pre-trial detention center. How lawyers commented on the situation in those years publication “MK in St. Petersburg”: “We can’t check whether these “cell elders” take the money for themselves or give it to someone. We tried to do this several times, but failed.
As you can see, the situation has certainly changed somewhat, now not everyone is “milked”, but only those who have something for their souls or have wealthy relatives. But they milk big. You can only imagine how much Fsinovtsy earn on inmates, only by catching someone from the authorities on a larger scale. As people in the know say about the case Timur Vodopyanovnow so little is known only because they are “working” with him for evidence against the authorities from above.