As it became known to Kommersant, a scam was uncovered in Smolensk with the participation of a former local police officer, Lieutenant Colonel Maxim Ananiev, who got a job at the prosecutor’s office, and his previously convicted accomplices. All are accused of fraudulent embezzlement of funds from the JSC Sogaz company under the guise of payments for insured events to police officers. The money was issued to citizens who had nothing to do with law enforcement agencies.
The basis for initiating a criminal case under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale), the investigation department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Smolensk in relation to unidentified persons became the results of operational measures by employees of the local UEBiPK, who were contacted by the security service of Sogaz JSC. The statement said that from July 29, 2020 to December 30, 2021, the insurance company received falsified documents for unfounded insurance claims for police officers.
While investigating, the operatives found police lieutenant colonel Maxim Ananyev, who from September 1, 2004 to January 14, 2022 worked in various positions in the investigative units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Smolensk region. Then, due to his seniority, he was dismissed from the internal affairs bodies and decided to get a job as an assistant prosecutor of one of the districts of Smolensk, but by the time of his arrest he had not had time to pass the appropriate certification.
After it turned out that police lieutenant colonel Ananyev was involved in the commission of a crime in the field of insurance fraud, the criminal case was transferred to the regional division of the TFR. The ex-policeman was detained, accusing already under Part 4 of Art. 159.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud as part of an organized group in the field of insurance), the court sent him to a pre-trial detention center. Following him, accomplices were also detained, whom he, as the organizer, according to the investigation, attracted to scams with payments for insurance claims. They turned out to be a resident of Smolensk Nikolai Grashchenkov and Sergey Solodkin, who was not working anywhere and was convicted of possession of drugs (Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and Sergey Solodkin, who was convicted more than once under the same article, as well as for fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), theft (Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and for the threat of murder (Article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
It follows from the materials of the case that in January 2020, a state contract was concluded between Sogaz JSC and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the provision of compulsory life and health insurance services for employees of internal affairs bodies in 2020–2021.
It was during this period, as a police officer, that Mr. Ananiev, who was well aware of the procedure for obtaining insurance payments, attracted, according to the investigation, Nikolai Grashchenkov, who developed the fraudulent scheme, to Sergei Solodkin. The lieutenant colonel took on the role of organizer and distribution of funds between the participants, and the task of the accomplices was to select the appropriate people for whom fictitious documents of insured events would be issued.
So, in June 2021, officer Ananyev, using a computer, a printer and the stamps of the official seal of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Smolensk region found on the Internet, having collected the necessary documents from a certain Pavel Khotchenkov, issued him as a police captain and sent a cover letter and papers to pay him to the insurance company the sum insured, allegedly in connection with the receipt of a “closed lower dislocation of the head of the right humerus” in the service.
As a result, according to false documents, Sogaz transferred 285.4 thousand rubles to an account opened with Sberbank in the name of Khotchenkov in the same month, which, according to the investigation, the fraudsters divided among themselves.
The defendants Ananyev, Grashchenkov and Solodkin implemented a similar scheme to receive illegal payments from the insurance company, using the data of the wife of the latter, Irina, who allegedly received a serious injury when she was an employee of the internal affairs of the Voronezh region, and an acquaintance Vladimir Demchenkov, who allegedly also served in Voronezh.
The investigation into the case is ongoing – the TFR does not exclude that both new episodes and other scams may appear in it.