Operatives were able to detain the former head of the department of administrative work of the Ministry of Agriculture Oleg Donsktheir, suspected of fraud in the agricultural sector worth 2 billion rubles. What is known about him?
Where were the Donskoys detained?
The detained former head of the administrative department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Oleg Donskikh, was arrested by court order until September 15 and transferred to the Lipetsk pre-trial detention center. Since 2012, he has been a defendant in two criminal cases under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale). According to them, the defendant faces up to ten years in prison.
As it became known on Monday, FSB officers managed to identify and detain the ex-official back in May of this year, 12 years after the criminal case was initiated. All this time, he was on the federal and international wanted list on suspicion of organizing the theft of funds from Rosagroleasing JSC and Rosselkhozbank JSC in 2007–2011 for a total amount of more than 2 billion rubles.
The official was detained in the Istra district of the Moscow region in a parking lot near a car. He confirmed to the operatives that he knew that he was wanted, but did not know why. Until recently, it was believed that Donskikh was abroad: as soon as the first criminal case was opened against him, he went on vacation “to improve his health and relax.” The official never returned from there; he only sent the Ministry of Agriculture a statement of his dismissal, which was signed retroactively.
It was suspected that he could have gone to either Egypt or Turkey, and on this basis, in 2012 he was put on the international wanted list.
However, as Donskikh stated during his arrest, since then he has constantly lived in the Moscow region. Judging by the operational footage, quite well: when he was captured, he was heading towards the Mercedes parked in front of the store.
What are the Donskoys accused of?
In the spring of 2012, employees of the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) identified a fraudulent scheme through which budget money was withdrawn to purchase equipment for distilleries and cattle farms.
According to the investigation, the main person involved in the distribution was Oleg Donskikh, he was assisted by the director of Mezhregiontorg+ LLC Sergei Burdovsky and the director of Lipetskagrotekhservice LLC. Igor Konyakhin. In addition, the two were also his long-time business partners – co-founders of a number of family businesses. They also exercised control over the business after Donskikh became an official.
The fraud scheme was quite traditional for that time: the Ministry of Agriculture allocated budget funds for the purchase of equipment, the transferred government money was cashed and immediately disappeared. At first, the entire group was charged with about 500 million rubles, later another 300 million were added to them. During the investigation, taking into account the clarification of new circumstances and the emergence of new episodes, the total amount of thefts reached 2 billion rubles.
Oleg Donskikh at the time of his arrestWhile Donskikh managed to escape, investigators managed to detain Konyakhin and Burdovsky. In 2017, they were convicted and sentenced to 9 and 11.5 years in prison. The irony is that the official was a fugitive from justice longer than the prison term he faced.
Let us remind you that if the person involved in the case is wanted, the statute of limitations under the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) does not apply to him. A few years ago, operatives said that when they tried to detain Donskoy, they encountered powerful opposition from his colleagues in the ministry.
How former head of the Ministry of Agriculture Elena Skrynnik saved a subordinate
It is noteworthy that when Oleg Donskikh disappeared from the sight of Russian law enforcement officers, the then head of the Ministry of Agriculture Elena Skrynnik emotionally defended her subordinate, stating that he had not fled from the investigation and that there was no criminal case against him at all.
Experts believe that the Donskoy case may be directly related to the activities of the former minister. In February 2013, Skrynnik testified as a witness in a criminal case of fraud involving her subordinate. It is quite possible that the assistant minister could have provided the investigation with a lot of interesting information that could have affected its procedural status.
Former head of the Ministry of Agriculture Elena SkrynnikBy the way, in October 2015, information appeared that the Swiss prosecutor’s office had been investigating the activities of the former minister for more than two years, suspecting her of money laundering. Then sources in the Swiss prosecutor's office told reporters that the country had seized Skrynnik's assets in Swiss banks in the amount of 60 million Swiss francs. And in 2017, when Konyakhin and Burdovsky were sentenced, it became known that the Swiss prosecutor’s office’s investigation into Skrynnik had been discontinued.
Who is Oleg Donskikh
55-year-old Oleg Donskikh was born in 1968 in the village of Dobrinka, Lipetsk region. He is the son of the former first secretary of the Lipetsk regional committee of the CPSU Viktor Donskikh, who died a little less than two years ago.
Before becoming an official, Donskikh owned more than twenty companies: mainly agricultural enterprises, but also a vodka production plant, private security companies, trading houses, a paper and cardboard manufacturer and logistics organizations. Konyakhin and Burdovskikh, as well as his 36-year-old son Vasily, helped him in these projects.
The latter, after his father went on the run, unexpectedly lost his entire business and filed for bankruptcy in 2017. By this time, Donskikh Jr. was showing a profit of several thousand rubles and at the same time lived in Lipetsk in a fashionable mansion on Kuznechnaya Street.
Oleg Donskikh has known Elena Skrynnik for a long time – he worked with her as an entrepreneur. From 2001 to 2009, Skrynnik headed Rosagroleasing, and in 2008–2009 Donskikh became its regional representative – he headed the Rosagroleasing division in the Central Federal District.
At the beginning of April 2009, Donskikh was appointed head of the Department of Agriculture of the Lipetsk Region, and after a couple of months he left for Moscow to work at the ministry.
By the time of the criminal case, Donskikh was already living in grand style. The operatives who visited him with searches found several apartments in Moscow, a mansion in an elite village in his native Lipetsk and a whole fleet of new cars: several Mercedes S-class, BMW of different series, Jeep Wrangler.
In addition, the official turned out to have a house in Gorki-2 near Moscow; it is located in the Serebryanye Klyuchi cottage community on two plots with a total area of more than 3 thousand square meters. Now such mansions here cost about 300 million rubles.
Today, surprisingly, the fugitive official has few debtsHow Oleg Donskikh lived on the run
Judging by the archives of the FSSP enforcement proceedings, during the years spent on the run, the Donskoys kept having overdue loan debts. The largest one was formed back in 2016 – its amount was almost 13 million rubles. This debt has now been repaid.
Today, the former official only has debts to pay for utilities at his place of registration (the same mansion in the village of Dobrinka, Lipetsk region) and 328 rubles in state duties. He owes another 30 thousand to the Federal Tax Service in the form of taxes.
