The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow arrested in absentia the former vice-president of the SOK group of companies, Vyacheslav Sheyanov, at the request of the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The entrepreneur has been put on the international wanted list, he is accused of embezzling more than 330 million rubles.
It is possible that his arrest may also affect other influential figures in the Russian economy, including the head of Transneft, Nikolai Tokarev. Details – in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.
Soap money
According to investigators, in 2008 Sheyanov decided to create a criminal group in Moscow and Yekaterinburg to steal funds from subsidiaries of Russian Railways, primarily the Federal Passenger Company (FPK). Sheyanov’s “Region-Finance” by this time already owned the Laundry of the Circum-Baikal Railway, the Laundry of the Far Eastern Railway, and the Laundry of the Southern Urals Railway, the main activity of which was the provision of Russian Railways services for staffing trains with removable linen. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sheyanov decided to create another LLC – this time “Laundry SVZhD”, which would be based in Yekaterinburg, providing similar services.
By the way, Sheyanov had established long-standing ties with the South Ural Railway: the businessman was connected with the ex-head of the South Ural Railway and the CBS Railway Anatoly Levchenko through a partnership through Investment Preferences CJSC.
When Anatoly Levchenko was in charge of the South Ural Railway, Vyacheslav Sheyanov was called his assistant. According to the website of Sheyanov’s “Distributed Generating Company”, his “team of professionals” on the basis of long-term contracts daily rented out 45,000 sets of linen to stations in Yekaterinburg, Perm, Nizhny Tagil, Tyumen, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Orsk and Orenburg.
The creation of a new laundry was motivated by the complete depreciation of FPC’s own facilities and the need to attract an investor. They became Sheyanov.
According to investigators, he came to an agreement with his acquaintance Andrey Voronin, whom he made the general director of the Laundry Service of the Northern Railways. He also entered into a share with the then vice-president of Russian Railways Mikhail Akulov, who created all the conditions for Sheyanov. In 2010, without any tenders, Voronin signed a contract with Mekhprachechnaya LLC, during the execution of which the company received not only discounts from the Federal Passenger Company (FPC), but also 1.4 billion rubles. from the Ural and South Ural branches of the company.
Two years later, when the FPK employees suggested that Mikhail Akulov terminate the contract with the Laundry Service of the Northern Railways due to complaints from passengers, he, as if out of a sense of contradiction, invested again. 289.7 million rubles were allocated. for the construction of a new laundry building. Which, oddly enough, never showed up.
From 2010 to 2020, Sheyanov himself collected a collection of rare motorcycles, sued a yacht from Gazbank through a Swiss wife, lost a lawsuit to establish paternity to an American wife, wrote a book about Russian space with the presenter of the Tsargrad channel and, in general, lived a rich and interesting life . Behind all these grandiose accomplishments, such a trifle as a laundry for the FPC completely fell out of his sight.
As reported in the media, Vyacheslav Sheyanov was also associated with the Deputy General Director of Rostec Igor Zavyalov. The latter could assist in Sheyanov’s employment in the Samara branch of OAO AB Inkombank. Under the supervision of Zavyalov, the businessman also worked at VTB (and in those years there was a scandal with the purchase of 30 drilling rigs by VTB Leasing at a price that could be 1.5 times higher than the market price). And in 2011, the name of the billionaire appeared in a criminal case on the sale of a controlling stake in the Yukos structure. Having numerous acquaintances in large companies, Vyacheslav Sheyanov received large government contracts on favorable terms.
Under the wing of the Tokarevs?
For a long time, Sheyanov, presumably, felt quite at ease, including thanks to the status partnership with Maya and Andrei Bolotov, the daughter and son-in-law of the head of Transneft, Nikolai Tokarev. Connections with Transneft were also seen through businessman Valery Izrailit, with whom Sheyanov allegedly had an acquaintance and almost partnership: Izrailit’s structures received contracts from Russian Railways, and the businessman himself was considered a longtime acquaintance of the then head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin.
However, over time, Sheyanov’s affairs began to deteriorate: in 2017, the Tokarevs left the founders of RegionFinance LLC, joint with Sheyanov. A little earlier, Valery Izraylit was accused of fraud, money laundering and illegal foreign exchange transactions. By the way, as one of the key witnesses to the Izraylit trial, Nikolai Tokarev, president of Transneft, was summoned.
A subsidiary of Transneft was recognized as a victim: according to the investigation, a criminal group led by Izraylit during the construction of Ust-Luga under government contracts and contracts with a subsidiary of Transneft purchased cheaper pipes instead of high-quality pipes for the tank farm and appropriated the difference, withdrawing it abroad.
At the same time, Izrailit’s defense claimed that the leadership of Transneft not only knew about the “scheme” with pipes, but also allegedly was its main beneficiary. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the customer under the contract in question was Transneft, which determined the list of suppliers and contractors. The largest contractor was Koksokhimmontazh (KXM), with whom Transneft had repeatedly cooperated. And it was “KXM” that performed the installation of the pipeline from pipes purchased by it independently from its supplier – LLC “Industrial Technologies” (“PT”). In addition, Transneft has also determined an organization for technical supervision – Diascan, its subsidiary. Thus, Transneft itself controlled the quality of the pipes – from the manufacturing plant to the laying of the pipe in the trench.
It is not a fact, by the way, that even then Sheyanov had severed all ties with the Tokarevs. As The Moscow Post has already reported, in 2018 Laundry Service SVZhD acquired shares in the British company Eurostar Developments Ltd worth $14.6 million. At that time, the office was in large debts – at least back in 2009, due to its insolvency, a manager was appointed there. And one more interesting detail – the former spouse of Maya Bolotova (or a person with an identical first and last name) Andrey Bolotov, during the period of their marriage, was the director of the Panamanian offshore DAT INVESTMENT CORP.
And it is possible that it was precisely this company that received the financial flows “earned” on the FPC and then potentially “merged” into a British company that was dying out. It is not necessary to exclude the participation of the Tokarevs in other cases of Sheyanov. Which finally attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies.
Sheyanov himself, sensing where the wind was blowing, had already disappeared abroad. But given his contacts with the Tokarev family, it is possible that the fate of Sheyanov, like Israelit, will raise questions from law enforcement agencies to the very head of Transneft.