Following the bloggers Valeria Chekalina and Alexandra Mitroshina, who were caught a few weeks ago in multimillion-dollar tax evasion, it was the turn of a larger figure in the Russian information business, Elena Blinovskaya. She is known for the “Marathon of Desires” and others. projects , as well as love to demonstrate their wealth – many still remember her birthday, which cost 120 million rubles. She now faces up to ten years in prison.
On the morning of April 27, a millionaire blogger Elena Blinovskaya, famous throughout Runet for its marathons of desires, relationships, finances, purpose, and so on, was detained by the FSB while trying to cross the Russian-Belarusian border. This happened at about 4 am at the checkpoint “Krasnaya Gorka” in the Smolensk region.
The reason for the detention is not original – recently, similar claims have already been made to other major bloggers: we are talking about non-payment of taxes for a tidy sum – 918 million rubles, as well as laundering 43 million rubles – for this amount a car was bought for Blinovskaya’s husband and equipment for one from his companies. According to the version of the investigation, the blogger did not pay VAT and personal income tax, spending the money received from subscribers through 18 organizations and three individual entrepreneurs associated with her. This allowed the marathoner to pay less taxes, but the scheme was revealed. A criminal case was initiated against Blinovskaya under two articles: tax evasion and money laundering on an especially large scale. According to media reports, the investigation intends to apply for a measure of restraint in the form of house arrest.
With him, Blinovskaya found tickets for a plane to Tashkent from Moscow – for a morning flight. This is a bit like the story of Ksenia Sobchakwho chose not the most obvious way to leave Russia when her commercial director Kirill Sukhanov became a defendant extortion case. Then the journalist bought plane tickets, but did not go to the airport. Instead, she went by car to Belarus, and from there to Lithuania, where she arrived on her Israeli passport. It is possible that Blinovskaya planned something similar. She was clearly in a hurry – the driver of the rented Maybach was driving with a large excess of speed, not relieving gas even in populated areas. But that didn’t help her escape.
gathering clouds
When, in March 2023, the first “tax” businesswhich featured a fitness blogger Valeria Chekalinaknown as Lerchek, and her husband Artyom Chekalinfollowed by the announcement of deed in a relationship Alexandra Mitroshina, many decided that Blinovskaya was also on the black list of tax authorities. Then the blogger was just launching the New Dimension marathon, participation in which cost from 10,800 rubles (the cheapest tariff, including eight airs in the recording) to 1 million rubles (the same eight airs and personal supervision of Blinovskaya). It was reported that the guru was being checked by the police, who had responded to numerous complaints from the participants in her projects – they did not feel the transformation of life for the better, although they took large loans for the sake of “unique knowledge”. In addition, social activists filed complaints against Blinovskaya with the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, demanding that she be checked for the possible presence in her business of a tax evasion scheme similar to the one used by Lerchek.
Blinovskaya, who was vacationing in Japan at the time these messages appeared, denied information about interest from law enforcement officers, emphasizing that, unlike her colleagues, she pays VAT and does not expect problems with the tax. By the way, she talked about the same in an interview with Ksenia Sobchak, noting that she spends about 300 million rubles a year on taxes, and she has long since moved away from simplified schemes.
However, what schemes the marathon runner is practicing now, the investigation will figure it out.
By the way, there is an opinion that the blogger attracted excessive attention of the police by an active campaign to protect her intellectual property. Over the past six months, she has filed 14 lawsuits alleging the theft of her product, complaining that the thieves of her developments were selling courses for only 1,500 rubles. The author’s price for these trainings started from 5000 rubles. In each lawsuit, the court found Blinovskaya right, obliging the defendants to remove the content stolen from the marathon runner.
The game of fractions
According to the version of law enforcement officers, Elena Blinovskaya acted in much the same way as Lerchek and Mitroshina. She, apparently, split up the business, artificially reducing the figures for income from the sale of her courses and marathons – this allowed her to pay less taxes, and until the amount exceeded the critical one, the blogger got away with it.
The method is based on the creation of a number of controlled legal entities and individual entrepreneurs that do not carry out independent entrepreneurial activities, and the use of special tax regimes prohibited for such activities. In practice, it looks like this: a businessman creates several organizations operating under special tax regimes and redistributes cash flows between them. It turns out that at first the purchase is made from one legal entity, then from another, and so on. The total amount that the entrepreneur still controls is divided between these companies and individual entrepreneurs, as a result, a simplified tax regime becomes available, which means that the scheme can help bypass the system and save on taxes. After all, the general taxation system – which, according to the law, should be applied, involves the payment of personal income tax or income tax, as well as VAT.
But, given the interest on the part of the security forces in Blinovskaya’s colleagues in the shop, which has been observed in the past few weeks, it seems that it is time to abandon such a practice – in addition to saving money, it promises problems with the law and a real chance to end up behind bars. According to the Telegram channel Baza, the Federal Tax Service allegedly has a special department that looks after bloggers who make good money in social networks and their income, which means that new cases can be expected soon.
Fascinating room tour
After the arrest, Blinovskaya was searched. They were held at several addresses. Law enforcement officers came to the blogger’s mansion in the elite cottage village “Millennium Park” in Istra, near Moscow, where real estate prices start at 55 million rubles. The action shooting this time was more like a roomtour: luxury bags, branded clothes hanging by flowers in a huge dressing room, jewelry, a personalized pink laptop, boxes with new iPhones in the bedside table and other luxury attributes.
In addition to the house, the investigators examined an apartment on Paveletskaya Embankment with an area of 86 square meters, which costs about 38 million rubles, and another 89-meter apartment on Shvernik Street – simpler, worth 15 million rubles. It is also reported about the apartment on Serpukhov Val: the area is 58 “squares”, the cost is 60 million rubles. Elite cars were found in the garage: Lamborghini Urus, Range Rover, Maybach and several motorcycles.
Almost all of Blinovskaya’s property is distributed among her relatives. Officially, she owns only an apartment on Serpukhov Val and a plot in Simferopol with an area of 50 hectares and a cadastral value of 900 thousand rubles. Everything else is registered to her husband. Alexey Blinovsky. The latter is still being held in a criminal case as a witness. The investigation believes that Blinovskaya may have withdrawn funds through her husband’s companies. It registered 13 companies specializing in jewelry, mining, engineering and more. The approximate income of all organizations is about 1 billion rubles a year. Most recently, Blinovsky liquidated his production of clothing under the Three Cats brand.
From headliners to accused
Just yesterday, April 26, Blinovskaya acted as the headliner of the amoCRM business forum in Moscow. According to the founder of the event Mikhail Tokovinin, at that time she did not yet know about the problems with the tax. According to him, the blogger was in a good mood and was satisfied with her performance.
True, according to the Mash Telegram channel, the audience present at the forum was disappointed – the information business guru seemed to them an uninteresting speaker, whose professional competencies and oratory skills leave much to be desired.
A day later, Blinovskaya was supposed to speak in Tashkent at the Fourth Dimension seminar – plane tickets were bought from her in advance, however, as mentioned above, the blogger did not use them. It is possible that someone managed to warn the marathon runner about a possible detention at the airport. Now the security forces are looking for someone who could leak information.
Events with the participation of Blinovskaya were planned several months in advance: after an April trip to Uzbekistan, she was going to launch the New Dimension financial marathon in May, and another marathon called Pride in June. The VIP package for both projects costs 1 million rubles.
By the way, among the payment methods for the new marathon, Blinovskaya suggests transferring money to cards of foreign banks – they, apparently, generally bypass Russian jurisdiction and pass by the Federal Tax Service of Russia.
120 million for the anniversary
Elena Blinovskaya became famous in social networks in 2013. Before that, she, a native of Oparino, the Kirov region and a holder of a diploma in economics from Yaroslavl State University, worked as an accountant, however, while on maternity leave, she decided to try herself in another field. At first, Blinovskaya invited subscribers to participate in psychological training called “Marathon of Desires.” They suddenly “shot”: tens of thousands of people passed them, making Blinovskaya a blogger with millions of subscribers. When the marathon began to bring a steady income, she expanded the range of trainings, launching the last one with her husband.
Elena Blinovskaya regularly uploads to the network the attributes of a luxurious life or shots showing a family idyll – she and Alexei Blinovsky have four children, and the couple has already celebrated their own wedding three times. The blogger regularly appears in public in branded outfits, drives luxury cars and flies private jets.
One of the most discussed social events in 2021 was Blinovskaya’s 40th birthday, which she celebrated in a big way. The marathon queen rented an entire hotel in Altai, organized a banquet with local delicacies and invited Ivan Urgant, Ksenia Sobchak, Philip Kirkorov, Svetlana Loboda and the “Beasts” group to entertain guests. As the hero of the occasion clarified, the holiday cost, not counting the cost of renting a hotel, about 120 million rubles. Probably part of the funds saved through tax schemes went to the event.
