In St. Petersburg, the police closed a chain of night bars on Rubinshtein Street, Kazanskaya and Nevsky Prospekt. At these points, with the assistance of female consumators (they are also promo models or, in a simple way, shop assistants), drunken visitors were tricked into forking out sums many times higher than the average check in the city’s establishments. A 34-year-old businessman and two of his accomplices, aged 21 and 23, were detained on suspicion of organizing criminal activity. At the moment, it is known about nine victims who have lost almost a million rubles each, but the scheme is not new and the victims of swindlers may subsequently turn out to be much more.
The Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg opened criminal cases under articles “Theft” and “Fraud” (Article 158 and Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) against businessman Roman Shestakov (according to the Fontanka publication), as well as two of his young assistants. They are suspected of organizing a fraudulent scheme, with the help of which they robbed heavily drunk men in bars, overstating the cost of orders by several times or simply debiting astronomical sums from their accounts. They were helped in this by attractive consumer girls. According to the publication, the security forces visited the establishments “Motiv”, “Balagan” and “El Gato”, which are located on the popular “bar” streets in the center of the Northern capital – Rubinshtein, Kazanskaya and Nevsky Prospekt. Mr. Shestakov was taken into custody until 26 May. One of the accomplices was released on bail, the second was placed under house arrest.
Potential customers, according to the classics, were brought in from other drinking outlets by promo models hired for a percentage of the check. In the process of communication, the girls found out the profession and solvency of the victim. According to the press service of the police, there was a strict rule that allowed not to run into trouble: “no journalists, media personalities and law enforcement officers.” If the victim met the criteria, then the consumators were called to continue communication in a place where “they always rest.” After such a “rest”, the waitresses brought the victims a huge bill, while the very quality of food and drinks was not even close to worth the money spent. In the event of a successful outcome, the tradesmen were entitled to 30% of the check. The rest was divided between the organizer and the duty shift of personnel.
During searches at their places of residence and in the premises of bars, security forces seized bank payment terminals, checks, cash documents and unaccounted for cash in the amount of 300 thousand rubles. Suspicion was also aroused by alcoholic products: in warehouses on Elizarov Street, investigators found over 120 liters of incomprehensible alcohol, for the most part without excise stamps and labels. In addition, all the applicants stated that after the ordered drinks they lost control of themselves and fell into unconsciousness. All alcohol-containing liquid is sent for examination.
As a rule, you can’t find sites or pages on social networks for such places, however, in the comments of the 2GIS electronic directory for each address, many five-star ratings and the same type of reviews of the “had a great time last weekend” level were left, among which there are occasionally opposing opinions indicating that all this is a “scam”, and the reviews are “fake”. In particular, a user named Rodion Fazlirakhmanov calls “Balagan” on the Kazan “sharaga”, which has been operating for several years. “In the first shot (a small portion of strong alcohol. — Kommersant-SPb) you are sprinkled with an unknown substance, after which the next morning you are left with a huge minus on the map,” he wrote.
To date, the practice of holding employees of bars where the price of food and drinks is overpriced is not so much, emphasizes Anastasia Pilipenko, a St. Petersburg lawyer. In her opinion, the difficulty lies in the fact that in each case the investigation will have to draw a clear line between an adequate and inadequate mark-up. “How law enforcement agencies are going to do this is another question,” the expert notes. Her colleague Aleksey Linikhin also points out that the problem in such cases is not only to attract dishonest owners, but also to receive appeals from the victims themselves. “Not every man will write a statement to the police. Let’s be direct: many of them have wives, and some just don’t want to spoil their reputation, so such cases often go down the drain,” the lawyer concluded.