Telegram channel Kompromat GROUP: messages from 01/30/2023

For the Federal Customs Service of Russia, the security forces, apparently, undertook thoroughly. We recently wrote that we detained the main fighter against corruption in the FCS, Dmitry Muryshev, on suspicion of bribery. And here is a new detention of the top manager of the department. This time, Dmitry Vasiliev, the head of the IT department, was locked up in the pre-trial detention center for two months. According to sources, the major took multimillion-dollar kickbacks on government contracts with private companies that are affiliated with former and current customs officers. It is believed that the money in the end did not go into his pocket, but to higher ones. Simply put, he acted as a cashier for the “transshipment” of kickbacks. So far, he is charged with one episode for 25 million rubles. Almost immediately after he took the money, he was detained in his office. Followed believe that in the near future other episodes will appear in the case, since such a “cash” work by Vasiliev was put on stream. It became especially active when he headed the central information and technical customs department in May 2021. If we follow how the costs of TsITTU grew, then a direct dependence on the personality of Vasiliev can be clearly seen. For example, in 2019, the budget for concluding contracts with contractors was 2.9 billion rubles, a year later it grew by another billion, and under the new boss, the amount soared to more than 5 billion rubles. I wonder how much was “laundered” in the year when the Data Center was created for 3.2 billion. Last year the budget was a bit more modest – 3.5 billion. Almost a third of this amount went to pay for the work of the Inline Technologies company, which carried out the modernization of the data center being created. Investigators conducted searches not only in Vasiliev’s office, but in several others. They questioned dozens of contracts in which the name of the detainee appeared. According to law enforcement officers, these contracts were distributed among relatives and trusted representatives of big customs bosses. It is noteworthy that Vasilyev himself got into a scandal when, during a corporate audit, it was revealed that one of the contracting organizations of the department was headed by relatives of a customs officer. Then he got off with just a reprimand. According to some information, General Denis Tereshchenko, deputy director of the Federal Customs Service, stood up for him at that time. It should be noted that the latter manages the customs IT department until Vasiliev’s appointment. So the investigators should take a closer look at the personality of the general.
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Representatives of the Association of Public Inspectors for Environmental Protection and the Association of Small and Medium Business Entrepreneurs of Magnitogorsk sent an appeal to Chelyabinsk Governor Alexei Teksler with a request to optimize the MSW scheme to reduce waste collection rates. Public activists believe that the reason for their growth is the appearance in Magnitogorsk of a waste sorting complex (WSC) and a MSW landfill, built under a concession agreement with Citymatic worth more than 1 billion rubles. It is known that under the terms of the concession, the Ministry of Ecology of the region undertook to ensure the loading of new facilities by at least 80%, otherwise compensating Citymatics from the budget for lost revenue. From July 1 last year, immediately after the complex was put into operation, in order to return the company’s investments, the cost of waste removal for legal entities increased from 483.92 rubles. up to 663.26 rubles. per cubic meter. After the approval of the new territorial scheme and in connection with the all-Russian indexation of prices for utilities, the tariff increased to 776.85 rubles. As a result, in less than six months, the cost of MSW management for the business community of Magnitogorsk increased by 60%. Social activists draw the governor’s attention to the deliberately overestimated capacities of MSCs, amounting to 200 thousand tons of MSW per year, with a total planned volume of the cluster of 160 thousand tons and actual – according to the terscheme – not exceeding 140 thousand tons. In addition, they point to the incompetence of the leadership of the Ministry of Ecology, which violated a number of points of the concession agreement, which resulted in an increase in the price of the services provided. In particular, the MSC was built at a distance of several kilometers from existing roads, which led to an increase in the cost of facilities due to the need to build a route. Hence the double increase in the cost of transporting waste. As a result, the tariffs for the processing and disposal of MSW for Citymatic are 5-6 times higher than the tariffs for these services that were in effect in Magnitogorsk before the new facilities appeared. In addition, it turned out that the company is violating its obligations: according to the data of the recycler OOO TsKS, the efficiency of sampling recyclables at the new complex was a little more than 5%, while the minimum 20% stipulated by the agreement. The Texler team, however, ignores the arguments of the public, referring to the need to comply with the terms of the concession and, thereby, defending the commercial interests of Citimatic JSC.
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It is not often that judges find themselves under criminal prosecution. And especially those who previously had the position of chairman of the Constitutional Court. It would seem, how can representatives of the highest judicial body and guarantors of legality transgress what they defend. But in the Republic of Tyva, this is probably possible, since the ex-chairman of the Constitutional Court Ayas Saaya was on the other side of the podium with a wooden gavel. Hearings on his misappropriation case began the other day. Together with him, three of his subordinates are under investigation – Monge-Bayir Ondar, Eduard Chikashov and Syrga Ondar. The former chairman insists he was simply slandered by his colleagues. According to his other version, he became a victim of discontent on the part of the security forces, who were dissatisfied with his work. Allegedly, he considered cases in which he did not support the line of law enforcement officers. As a result, they were offended and decided to take revenge. Three articles are spelled out in the materials of the criminal case – misappropriation, complicity in misappropriation and the use of a knowingly forged document. All this is connected with the organization and holding of the All-Russian scientific-practical conference of judges in Kyzyl. The main organizer was the Constitutional Court of Tuva. Local authorities allocated about 2.3 million rubles for this case. The Chairman of the Constitutional Court Saaya ordered that the financiers cash out about 2 million rubles from this amount. He stated that the money would be kept by him. And so it was. In the process of preparation, he gave the accountants cash to pay for the expenses of the event. As a result, he kept within almost 400 thousand rubles. And he took the rest into his own hands. Realizing that the conference participants needed souvenirs, but there was nothing left of the allocated money, he instructed the financial department to make fake receipts for the purchase of 25 knives with silver-trimmed handles. And also wooden cases and expensive packaging were allegedly purchased for them. As a result, knives on fictitious papers cost almost 900 thousand rubles, and their packaging – about 700 thousand. Thus, Saaya “justified” the 1.6 million rubles left behind. The case was filed in 2016. Then only subordinates of Saay were recorded as defendants. It was not easy to take the chairman himself. This is due to the complex procedure for the extradition of judges to law enforcement officers. This requires the permission of the Higher Qualification Board of Judges of Russia. At first, the Republican Collegium did not want to bring their colleague to justice. But the Investigative Committee challenged this decision in the VKKS. By the end of 2019, however, it was decided to “surrender” Saaya. At the same time, the Constitutional Court of Tuva was abolished, and its chairman resigned. The former representative claims that he was slandered by the financier Ondar under pressure from investigators. Allegedly, he himself was under criminal prosecution in another case. And in order to avoid responsibility and achieve the retraining of his article for another, for which the statute of limitations had expired, he handed over the boss. Whether this is so, the court will now establish. But the fact that immediately after the conference comrade Saay got a new foreign car is also taken into account. Although his defense insists that the car was bought in a different period. The property of the defendants was seized for a total of 2 million rubles.
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The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region accepted for consideration the claim of the “Single Customer in the Construction Sphere” against Transept-Group LLC, owned by oligarch Boris Rotenberg. The upcoming proceedings are related to the execution of a contract concluded in 2017 for the reconstruction of the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theater and the addition of two administrative buildings to it with a total cost of 303 million rubles. Today, the plaintiff requires the contractor to pay 69.5 million rubles, which includes outstanding work, an unworked advance payment plus a penalty. This is not the first scandal associated with the Mariinsky. In 2012, the Accounts Chamber revealed numerous financial violations for 290 million rubles during the construction of the second stage of the theater, which at that time was supervised by the notorious Marat Oganesyan. Later, he took the chair of the vice-governor, from where he moved to the pre-trial detention center as part of the investigation of a criminal case on embezzlement during the construction of the Zenit Arena. As a result, the project for the second stage of the Mariinsky Theater was implemented with a total construction estimate of 21 billion rubles. That’s just the urban community and the creative intelligentsia dubbed it “empty space” and “faceless nothing.” St. Petersburg “theatrical” contracts are “sawed” regularly. In February 2018, the person involved in the criminal case of embezzlement of 2.4 million rubles allocated for the reconstruction of the BDT im. Tovstonogov, Alexander Shimberg became the director of ZAO Theater and Decoration Workshops (TDM): he signed and submitted to the state customer documents containing false information about the execution of the contract for the technical re-equipment of the stage complex with theater equipment. The same CJSC “TDM” “lit up” in the scandal with the “Zenith Arena”. As a result, in June last year, the court sentenced Shimberg to four years in prison. The defendants in the criminal case on large-scale fraud and money laundering were the beneficiary of the Meander company Yevgeny Yarmosh and its general director Elena Zavadskaya: they are charged with embezzlement of 200 million rubles during the reconstruction of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Rimsky-Korsakov. Last December, the Federal Investigative Committee became interested in possible violations committed during the reconstruction of the Music Hall: the leadership of the Main Investigative Directorate of the RF Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg was entrusted with conducting an appropriate check, the results of which should be sent to Moscow.
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At a time when it is necessary to build and preserve, there are increasing reports of bankruptcy and sale of enterprises. I want to believe that buyers will be able to revive and develop them. But not all assets sold are in demand. And they can simply turn into industrial zones, where scrap metal sawing companies work. Now put up for auction the oldest Leningrad winery “Northern Venice”. The once popular wines were not in demand. According to experts, this is due to the fact that the plant simply could not reach retailers with its products. And as analysts note, more than 70% of alcohol in Russia is sold through retail. Known and the initial cost of the lot, and the opening date of the auction. The start will be given in early March, and sellers are asking for about 150 million rubles for 3.7 hectares of territory near Gatchina and for production workshops with equipment. This will be the second attempt to sell the plant. Previously, more than 165 million rubles were asked for it. True, at that time there were no people willing to purchase wine assets. Let’s see what happens this spring. The winery has been operating since the late 90s. Its owner throughout the life of the enterprise was businesswoman Olga Kotovich. She personally owned about 7% of the shares, she owned the rest of the package through her company Mercury LLC. The latter has already been declared bankrupt. The company owed the bank “Peresvet” more than 250 million rubles on a loan. The financial institution filed a lawsuit to declare its borrower bankrupt and achieved what they wanted. The shares of “Northern Venice” are also at the disposal of “Peresvet”. The problems at the plant began some time ago. Probably, exactly at the time when retailers took over most of the alcohol market. For comparison, in 2019, the plant’s revenue was more than a billion rubles, with a net profit of about 56 million. But by 2021, these figures have fallen to indecent – a little more than 46 million in revenue, of course, no profit. But the loss appeared on 620 million rubles. The lawsuit for the bankruptcy of “Northern Venice” was filed by the Leningrad Federal Tax Service. The year before last, surveillance was introduced, and a year later, bankruptcy proceedings were introduced. Analysts believe that the second attempt is unlikely to be able to sell the assets of the winery. Now, in their opinion, only large producers of alcoholic products turned out to be viable. It is almost impossible for small businesses to survive in the market. And what is important is the well-established sales schemes for their products, all through the same retailers. Whether “SV” will find its new owners is not yet clear. But I want to believe that it will happen. After all, it is important to preserve not only the production itself in the conditions of Western sanctions, but also jobs. Yes, and import substitution in this case also looks quite a good option.
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In the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg, preliminary hearings on the criminal case against ex-State Duma deputy Mikhail Glushchenko (known in the criminal world as “Misha-Khokhol”), accused of a triple murder committed in Cyprus in March 2004, have ended. The crime took place in a villa in the village of Peye near the city of Paphos. The victims were the owner of the villa, former State Duma deputy, businessman Vyacheslav Shevchenko, president of the Nevsky Prospekt association Yuri Zorin and Valentina Tretyakova (presumably a translator). Zorin died by pure chance: he stayed overnight at Peye’s villa. Shevchenko and Tretyakova were killed with demonstrative cruelty: the first one received at least 8 blows with a chopping object, at least 2 blows with a stabbing object, and at least 2 blows with a blunt one; the second – at least 7 blows with a chopping object. Firearms were not used by the killers. The police were called by the lawyer who discovered the bodies, who arrived at the villa after the victims did not show up for a pre-arranged meeting. The criminal case was initiated at the request of Sergei Shevchenko, the brother of the deceased. Detained in 2009, Glushchenko denied the accusations against him. In 2011, he ended up in the dock for extorting $10 million from Shevchenko and said that he had been tritely slandered. In early March 2012, the Kuibyshevsky District Court found Glushchenko guilty of extortion on an especially large scale, sentencing him to eight years in a strict regime colony with a fine of 300,000 rubles. The investigation into the murder case in Cyprus dragged on for years. To date, the version of the prosecution is as follows. The criminal authority “Misha-Khokhol” provided the Shevchenko brothers with a “roof”: the safety of business activities and protection from encroachments by other criminal structures. At the beginning of 2004, the monthly amount of remuneration for patronage was 50 thousand US dollars. After refusing further “cooperation”, Glushchenko demanded from Sergei Shevchenko $ 10 million, or shares of Metropol OJSC. Having received another refusal, he organized the murder of the brother of a businessman in order to intimidate and fulfill the demands put forward. The authority itself does not plead guilty to the murder and says that he only wanted to receive the money owed to him. Glushchenko’s lawyers petitioned for the termination of the criminal case due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, but the court refused to satisfy the petition. The process will be held in open mode, and the selection of jurors will take place at the end of February this year.
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I wonder if there is (or existed) in Russia at least one bank that would not be surrounded by its enterprising owners or top managers?! It was probably a rhetorical question. Materials about financial fraud in domestic credit institutions are published with such regularity that it would be time to start a separate section for them. We can even suggest a working title – “Bank pests”. So, another such news appeared the other day about the ex-head of one of the departments of Promsvyazbank Alexander Afanasyev. He, according to sources, was an active participant in the illegal withdrawal of more than 1 billion euros from the PSB to the accounts of foreign companies. The scam was done the day before the reorganization of the Central Bank. Only now the businessman is unlikely to be brought to justice soon, since he was arrested only in absentia. Where he is hiding, the sources do not say. Afanasiev was one of the key performers in this scheme. The ideological inspirers were the brothers Alexey and Dmitry Ananiev, who previously owned Promsvyazbank. All these comrades are charged with especially large embezzlement. Relatives, too, by the way, are on the run. But Interpol took their side and stopped the persecution by Russian law enforcement officers. The international organization considered the motives for the search to be political. Although in the current geopolitical conditions, Western structures in most cases consider motives as such. And scammers of all stripes actively use this to avoid punishment. In this case, several other defendants are also wanted. These are the bank’s former lawyer Sergey Zorin, Ukrainian Igor Pidluzhny and the president of Promsvyazcapital Batraz Pliev. Four more accomplices received real terms from five to seven and a half years. Ex-vice-president of the PSB Nikolai Tsukanov was acquitted by the court. In December 2017, the Ananyev brothers instructed their subordinates to prepare a number of fictitious financial documents for the bank to acquire several blocks of shares from the Dutch company Promsvyaz Capital BV. The securities were used to purchase assets of PSB itself, bonds of Prosvyazcapital and securities of PSB Finance SA and a number of others structures. More than 57 billion rubles and more than half a billion dollars went to the account of Promsvyaz Capital controlled by relatives. Investigators calculated that the total damage to the PSB amounted to more than 1 billion euros. It is noted that after the money was withdrawn, the participants in the fraud divided the amount received and took measures to legalize it. In fact, of course, Promsvyazbank did not buy any assets. All this was done to cover up the traces of the scam. Note that the PSB filed a lawsuit against Afanasyev for a refund of 20 billion rubles. Whether the bank sees its stolen funds and whether the bosses are held accountable, time will tell.
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Amnestied in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, civil service pensioner and ex-deputy head of the Presidential Administration Ivan Malyushin may again be involved in a criminal case. It became known that the Prosecutor General’s Office acted with the intention to “resurrect” the case. The position of the Supreme Court is that the 74-year-old former official had no right to claim the right to pardon. But either his authority and connections played a role, or some other circumstances. But in the end, Comrade Malyushin, who had given an almost free lease of a 2.5-hectare plot in the very center of Moscow to an American office, was amnestied three months after the verdict was announced. Perhaps, in the near future, supervision will eliminate this gap in domestic justice. Malyushin’s name surfaced again due to the fact that the Prosecutor General’s Office, through the court, achieved the return to state ownership of a premium land plot in the capital transferred back in 2013. Stroygroupservis was the tenant. The beneficiary of the Russian company was the American office AME Capital. The agreement on the transfer of land was signed by Malyushin himself in the status of deputy head of the presidential administration at the end of June of the same year. As a result, according to the investigators, the treasury missed more than 100 million rubles of rent. The official made the tariffs so low that they were not even visible. Together with the land, an unfinished complex of buildings for public utilities and administrative purposes with multi-level parking lots also became the property of the state. The total area of ​​the complex is about 14 thousand square meters. All these buildings seem to have been built for the needs of management. As part of the case for the return of property, the court ordered Stroygroupservis and Malyushin to pay the money. The ex-official did not complain about such a decision, but the company decided to “wrestle”. A date for the appeal has not yet been set. Recall that the criminal case against Malyushin was initiated in August 2019. He was charged with abuse of power, but under the most “easy” part of this article. Although the prosecutor’s office pointed to a more serious one. But “the most humane court in the world” sentenced the former official “softly”, which gave rise to the abuser to apply for amnesty. And then successfully received it. Now the “femidovites” are deciding whether to resume the criminal prosecution or not.
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The owners of the gold mining company Polymetal intend to change the jurisdiction of its “parent” structure “Polymetal International plc” from the “unfriendly” British island of Jersey to Kazakhstan, and also to separate the business into Russian and Kazakh directions. Among other things, this will allow the continued payment of dividends to shareholders, only the management of Polymetal International states that the company does not consider itself a legal entity owned by or acting on behalf of persons associated with Russia. One of its largest shareholders (23.9%) is ICT Holding Ltd, registered in Cyprus, controlled by billionaire Alexander Nesis, a resident of Switzerland, who has passports of Russia, Israel and Malta. But the Kazakh “registration” of “Polymetal International” will allow not only the “cosmopolitan businessman” but also his Western partners to receive a percentage of the sale of Russian gold. These include the international investment company BlackRock, headquartered in the United States, which in March last year increased its stake in Polymetal International from 5.07% to 10.1% and at the same time announced the termination of investments in the securities of Russian enterprises. The shareholders of BlackRock are, in particular, Bank of America and a number of large corporations, such as the American Capital Group and the German chemical-pharmaceutical concern Bayer AG. Nesis himself previously withdrew from the co-owners of most of his Russian assets, including those associated with offshore companies and declaring multimillion-dollar losses. The unprofitable ones include, for example, OJSC Polymetal UK, whose deputy general director is Zumrud Rustamova, the wife of former Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who is also involved in the distribution of dividends to Polymetal’s western beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Russian tax authorities are already beginning to have claims against commercial structures affiliated with Nesis. Thus, it was reported about litigation related to the debts of the Sredneuralsky Search Bureau and the Saum Mining Company.
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After the personnel appointments announced today, the number of deputy governors of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, Natalia Komarova, has increased from 11 to 13 people. Moreover, one of the rates was not in the staff list, which may entail additional expenses of the district budget, sources in the government report. Today it became known that the director of the department of public, external relations and youth policy of Yugra Elena Shumakova was appointed to a new post – deputy governor in charge of sports, culture, science and education. So, she took the 12th position of the deputy governor, which became vacant after Yury Yuzhakov left the government. Another deputy governor was also appointed – Alexei Zolotukhin, who took the position of Alexander Tirtoka. Tirtoka himself, retaining the post of deputy, received new powers. Thus, now Komarova has 13 deputies, including the first two. In the budget for 2023, the cost of paying salaries to the deputies of the governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug is now set at 133 million rubles. Given that the staff list provided for 12 rates, then an average of 11 million rubles was laid down for one deputy. After the appointment of Komarova, these expenses will have to be increased by at least another 11 million rubles, provided that the governor does not decide to dismiss someone from deputies in the near future.
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The Energy Commission of the Sverdlovsk Region has canceled the resolution on the regulation of night and day electricity tariffs for local residents. As a result, the region faced the zeroing of the night discount for electricity. Prior to the adoption of the resolution, the night rate was much cheaper than the day rate. At the same time, a return to the “day-night” scheme is possible, but this requires the replacement and reprogramming of electricity meters. The situation is aggravated by the November decision of local authorities to raise electricity prices by 35% at once. The negative reaction of the residents provoked by this led to the need for the FAS to intervene in the situation. For example, Raisa Morozkova, a resident of the region, turned to the anti-monopoly authorities, complaining about the sharp increase in tariffs. The resident also sent a complaint about the situation in the region to the Government of the Russian Federation. In addition to the scandal with electricity in the Sverdlovsk region, the cost of major repairs immediately skyrocketed by 40%. The regional overhaul fund stated that the sharp increase was due to inflation, a sharp rise in the price of building materials, however, the Ministry of Construction of Russia in the summer of 2022 denied the rise in price and cited data on a fall in prices for building materials. Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev pointedly ignores the potential protest agenda in the region. Against the backdrop of mass discontent and complaints from citizens to the FAS, instead of explaining the position of the authorities and reassuring the population, he went on a two-week vacation from January 30, which he plans to spend in Moscow. An extremely strange decision of the head of the region, which confirms the inability of the head of the region to competently build social communication with voters.
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Swiss bank Credit Suisse lent hundreds of millions of dollars to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s offshore companies that used U.S. stocks as collateral. Secretly owned firms lent each other huge sums that were mysteriously returned or written off in what experts say could be a scheme to hide the origin of the funds. Abramovich’s ownership of several offshore firms was hidden by a complex corporate structure, including an opaque trust and an intermediary company owned by MeritServus. These firms owned nearly half a billion dollars of stakes in America’s two largest steel companies and were involved in mysterious loan agreements whose purpose, experts say, is questionable. Barclays in Monaco and UBS in Zurich also serviced Abramovich’s $940 million trusts and offshore assets. Barclays and UBS held the assets of ten offshore trusts in Cyprus and Jersey that managed Abramovich’s property. In early 2022, Abramovich handed over most of his assets to his children to avoid the consequences of possible sanctions and asset freezes. It is not known whether the Barclays and UBS banks allowed his children to benefit financially from Abramovich’s assets.