“Deanonymization”: representatives of operational services are looking for employees of the Irkutsk Babr suspected of media blackmail At the end of May, there was a wave of publications about the detention of a number of administrators of Telegram channels convicted of extortion – selling a block for negative. These included “Ufa marten”, “Lyapkin tyapkin”, “Derzhimorda” and others. After numerous complaints, law enforcement officers took up the Irkutsk network “In the Lair of Babr”, which blackmailed from government officials to owners of large businesses. For a long time, they managed to avoid persecution due to remote access to the resource, lack of an office, and transfers to anonymous crypto wallets. The other day, a document was published on the network with a list of suspects of complicity with Dmitry Taevsky. So, the list includes: – the creator and owner of Babr Dmitry Taevsky – those responsible for the site Nadezhda Sharapova, Pavel Taevsky and Olga Novikova – Yulia Taevskaya and the technical part involved in telegram support, the son of the creator, Roman Taevsky – as well as journalists Veronika Peschinskaya, Veronika Yang , Alexander Egorov, Anna Martynova, Yulia Fursova and others. According to our sources, the collection of information for the opening of a criminal case should be completed by September 1 – this is the task assigned to the executors. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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It has become a tradition to squander the funds of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Time after time, more and more new schemes for the theft of budget money by employees of the military department itself are revealed. In the old days, this would have been considered treason, but now it’s just a scam. Moreover, you can get virtual terms for hundreds of stolen millions of rubles, or even avoid punishment due to the expired statute of limitations. The ex-head of the department of public procurement and pricing of the ministry, Sergei Kushnarev, received only four suspended years for a scam of almost 324 million rubles. He was also banned from holding positions in the state and municipal service for two years. And, in fact, everything. The reason for such a loyal verdict was a deal with the investigation. Kushnarev did not open it and admitted his guilt, told how he managed to pull off the scam. Several people helped him in this. These are employees of the Ministry of Defense Ivan Gnatyuk and Ruslan Besedin. By the way, Gnatiuk also decided to follow the path of repentance and also received a suspended sentence. But Besedin and the head of the cleaning company Svetlana Maslennikova refused. So in the near future hearings on their personalities will begin. And these processes are unlikely to have virtual deadlines. Most likely, the prosecution will seek a real conclusion. “Divorced” the Ministry of Defense for 324 million rubles on contracts for cleaning the premises of the department. Services were provided at inflated prices. Kushnarev knew a lot about pricing. True, after the initiation of a criminal case three years ago, he was listed as a witness for 10 months. But later, military investigators realized that Kushnarev was the very defendant who should be among the first on the list of accused. In the spring of 2021, he was arrested. And in order to ease his fate, he made a deal with the investigation. It is also known that the ex-head of the public procurement department of the Russian Defense Ministry compensated part of the damage caused. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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After reviewing the information received from the local administration, the deputies of the Duma of Uray, considered one of the backbone municipalities of the LUKOIL oil company in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, came to the conclusion that the city will not receive the reconstructed sewage treatment facilities (STP) until at least 2028. But the existing WWTPs have not been repaired since their launch in the 1970s, and the issue of their modernization, first voiced back in 2010, has not yet been resolved. Officials themselves estimate its implementation at more than 1.5 billion rubles. The project of new treatment facilities has not yet been developed. It is known that the contract for the implementation of design and survey work worth 5.5 million rubles was signed by MKU UKS Uraya in January 2021 with OOO Academproekt from Nizhnevartovsk, but then it was terminated without voicing reasons. In January 2022, UKS Uraya signed a similar contract for more than 13.1 million with a due date in January 2023 with an individual entrepreneur Ilya Suchkov from Krasnodar Goryachiy Klyuch, but it was also terminated, and the contractor was included in the register of unscrupulous suppliers . The appeals of the municipal deputy Artem Kukushkin to the Investigative Committee with a request to conduct an audit, including for a possible overestimation of the cost of the contract, were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the cost of carrying out design and survey work on the WWTP has already increased to 60 million rubles. As a result, today sewage is discharged into the Konda River, downstream of which the Silava ethnopark and the village of Polovinka are located. There is also a threat of pollution of the Ob water area. According to the first deputy head of Urai Andrey Ashikhmin, at the end of last year the administration monitored prices for design and survey work and received three commercial proposals with an average cost of 53.8 million. But the announced price exceeds the possibilities of the municipal budget. In response to a request to consider an adjustment to the regional program, addressed to the profile deputy governor Azat Islayev, a response was received from which it followed: project documentation is required to include the facility in the state program. In addition, when the deputies of the City Duma approved the budget for 2023, no funds were provided for design and survey work on the facility “Reconstruction of the Uray sewage treatment facilities”. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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The protracted legal battle between the relatives of the deceased billionaire Alexander Shchukin has already reached the Supreme Court. The legacy of the “coal king” is trying to return his spouse. But according to the will, the oligarch left almost all the assets to his distant relative Maxim Repin, who once worked as a simple driver. There is another unspoken “heir” – Timur Frank. Previously, he worked as a lawyer for Shchukin and represented his interests. The rewriting of wealth took place at a time when the magnate was under investigation. According to sources, Shchukin even sued Frank because the lawyer pulled off several scams and appropriated several of the oligarch’s firms. In fact, it was just a cover. Frank, on the other hand, continued to be the nominal holder of assets in Russia and the caretaker of the offshore “pod”. It was in 2016 when Shchukin and two deputies of the head of Kuzbass Aman Tuleev were accused of extorting the assets of the Inskoy coal mine. But by a strange coincidence, no verdict followed. Shchukin died two years ago. Some believe that his death was not accidental. But they chalked it up to covid. Previously, he owned the Sibulemet holding. He was in the top 200 Russian rich people with a fortune of $ 1.8 billion. After the funeral, a certain Olga Siksina contacted Shchukin’s widow, who asked to come and sign the documents. As a result, the wife of the oligarch signed the waiver of the inheritance. Now she is trying to get an annulment in court, as she claims that she made a mistake due to age and external pressure. Siksina now manages several companies that previously belonged to Shchukin. Ms Shchukina has already been denied by several courts. Now she is waiting for the date of the meeting in the Supreme Court. One of the requirements of Evgenia Shchukina is the cancellation of several transactions involving Absolut-NK. This company, which includes 20 subsidiaries, is the core of the family’s assets. Its director is Olga Siksina, and its shareholders are Maxim Repin (90%), Evgenia Schukina (widow) (8%), Alfacapital and Andrey Skopintsev (1% each). Acting by proxy on behalf of Shchukina, third parties transferred a number of buildings and land plots belonging to her as contributions to the property of Absolut-NK. These contributions were made free of charge. The widow also demands to nullify other transactions. Among the companies in which Maxim Repin and Alexander Schukin own shares in the proportion of 80/20, Yeti House LLC stands out. This firm, among other things, manages a luxury hotel in the Sheregesh ski resort. Maxim Repin joined the founders of the office in 2021, when Shchukin was already under investigation. Around the same period, Yeti House LLC appointed a new director, Olga Zalesskaya, who in 2016 headed Magma TEK, a company that supplied significant volumes of fuel under government contracts. One of the co-owners of Magma is Maxim Nesin, the founder of the bankrupt Kuzbass Fuel and Energy Company. It is likely that Zalesskaya represents several interested parties seeking to acquire the “former” assets of Alexander Shchukin. In addition to Yeti House, in 2020-2021 she also headed other Shchukin offices: Parking and Victoria. The reason for her rapid departure from these companies remains unknown. However, it is likely that potential buyers of Shchukin’s business are tired of the protracted legal battles over the inheritance. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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The Arbitration Court of the Chelyabinsk Region refused to satisfy the application of Zlatoustgazstroy LLC, which sought to invalidate the termination of the gas network lease agreement with the administration of Zlatoust. At the same time, initially the gas distribution organization (GDO) itself initiated the return of networks to the municipality. The conflict is related to the gasification of the village of Degtyarka, for which Zlatoustgazstroy collected 820 thousand rubles from residents. The corresponding project was prepared, sent for state expertise, and also presented to the capital construction department of Zlatoust for funding. But the mayor’s office did not agree with the proposed option of two-pipe gasification, believing that this would lead to an increase in costs from the initial 25 million to 52 million rubles. After the transfer of additional gasification functions to Gazprom, the project was postponed: according to the director of Zlatoustgazstroy, Gamaletdin Agzamov, it was simply transferred to Gazprom Gas Distribution Chelyabinsk. As a result, the enterprise refused to service about 500 km of pipelines, which threatens it with the loss of a significant part of its profits. To improve financial performance, the company initiated proceedings to recover from NOVATEK-Chelyabinsk a debt in the amount of 140 million rubles accumulated since 2015. The long delay in filing a lawsuit with Zlatoustgazstroy is explained by the harmonization of tariffs, which stretched over three years. In turn, NOVATEK-Chelyabinsk and Gazprom Gas Distribution Chelyabinsk are seeking the termination of the contracts previously concluded with GDOs in court, since during the transfer of networks it turned out that some of them had not been repaired, which means that Zlatoustgazstroy did not fulfill the previously taken obligations. As a result, the Zlatoust mayor’s office demanded to eliminate the identified shortcomings or pay 9 million rubles to the budget. The management of the gas distribution company considers the obligations fulfilled, since during the operation the enterprise allegedly spent about 5.5 million rubles annually on the repair of networks instead of the 3.5 million included in the tariff. Meanwhile, the municipality has already leased the gas networks to UGS-Finance , and officials offered to transfer the last sections without a tender. This initiative was opposed by local deputies, who declared the illegality of such a procedure. In UGS-Finance, the annual cost of maintaining and repairing networks is estimated at 3-4 million rubles; their operation was transferred to OOO Partner-Gaz from Troitsk, and OOO Dobrostroy, affiliated with the tenant, was involved in the repair work. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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The trial in a criminal case against the former chairman of the board of directors of OAO Ust-Luga Company has come to an end. Valery Izrailit may be found guilty of withdrawing about $2 million abroad to the accounts of foreign residents using forged documents. The prosecutor’s office asked to deprive the merchant of liberty for 9.5 years. Meanwhile, the criminal prosecution of Izrailit for particularly large-scale fraud and money laundering, received by him in the chair of the chairman of the board of directors of Ust-Luga, has been terminated. This became possible due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for these crimes. Then, as a result of the actions of Izrailit, 320 million rubles were stolen from the allocated funds for the development of the port of Ust-Luga. Izrailit was suspected of withdrawing funds abroad using forged documents and legalizing them after he took advantage of the capital amnesty in 2016. He declared foreign companies that he controlled, shares, bank accounts, an apartment in London. In addition, the businessman allegedly planned to buy his own yacht from one of his companies in order to explain the withdrawal of funds abroad. The defense still does not agree that a criminal case has been opened in connection with this special declaration. The lawyer is based on the position of the Supreme Court on the inadmissibility of using either the declaration itself or the information from it. Meanwhile, the state prosecution refers to documents with information from the special declaration, thus violating the Code of Criminal Procedure. Izrailit himself was detained on suspicion of fraud at the end of 2016. This case was connected with the delivery of low-quality pipes to the port of Ust-Luga. In the spring of 2020, the businessman was placed under house arrest. And already in the autumn, the Arbitration declared Izrailit bankrupt at the claim of the Baltic Investment Bank, which was filed in the summer of 2017. The financial organization wanted to recover from him a debt of more than 200 million rubles. The court found that the businessman owed even more. A penalty and interest on the loan were added to the principal debt. In total, the amount barely reached seven hundred million rubles. At the beginning of last year, Izraylit’s property was auctioned off. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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Within the framework of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Governor of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug Natalia Komarova announced 8 directions to stimulate the further development of natural resources. Among other things, she proposed to restore the role of the state in conducting a geological study of the subsoil and the prospecting and appraisal stage of minerals, to develop a mechanism and a balance of responsibility between the state and subsoil users, and to transfer to the competence of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation the regulation of unprofitable deposits that create “a stable basis for citizens to engage in economic activity” . The head of the region dwelled in detail on the implementation of the federal project “Technologies for the development of hard-to-recover hydrocarbons” in Yugra, which at the beginning of the year was threatened with closure due to late reporting on a number of indicators. Komarova suggested “transferring the project to a different status” by “combining the capabilities of academic branches of science, industrial and technical enterprises, state authorities, oil and gas companies and their scientific and technical centers.” This position was supported at the federal level. According to Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, the voiced proposals will be taken into account when finalizing the strategy for the development of the mineral resource base of Russia, calculated until 2050. The governor also outlined in detail the investment policy of the region, where 16 concession agreements have been concluded since the beginning of this year for a total of 10 billion rubles; another 45 projects with a total investment of more than 61 billion are being implemented on a partnership basis. In addition, the first investment protection agreement in the country was signed in Yugra: it was signed as part of the Surgut Metallurgical Complex LLC project, which provides for the creation of a facility for the production of shaped steel with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons. As a result, for the second year in a row, Yugra became the winner in the nomination “Customer-centric region” of the Rosinfra national award, which assesses the quality of work with investors and the creation of conditions for the implementation of projects based on public-private partnerships. Within the framework of the forum, the leadership of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug was marked by partnership agreements with the government of the Leningrad Region, the Federal Corporation for the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, the Ministry of Culture, the Roscongress Foundation, etc. According to analysts, the economic effect of the forum for Yugra will be no less than the results of last year, when the region managed to attract funding in the amount of 40.6 billion rubles. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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The investigation of the criminal case against the former Minister of Transport of the Krasnoyarsk Territory has ended. Now the investigation in court will prove that Konstantin Dimitrov exceeded his authority during the design of the Krasnoyarsk metro tram. It is believed that he knew about the failure of the contractor to complete the work in full, but paid for their entire cost of 740 million rubles. The former official immediately admitted his guilt and made a deal with the investigation, telling about who else was involved in the scam. Thus, Konstantin Mandrov, the former head of the regional transport department, Yuri Lapshin, the former chairman of the regional government, and Oleg Mitvol, the chairman of the board of directors of KrasnoyarskTISIZ, which acts as a contractor, fell under criminal prosecution. The contract with this company was signed by local authorities represented by the local transport head office in the fall of 2019. For 975 million rubles, the contractor had to adjust the construction design and estimate documentation. In Krasnoyarsk, the construction of the metro began in 1995, in 2009 the project was frozen. When a billion budget rubles were allocated from the Ecology national project, work was resumed. The investigation believes that Dimitrov acted on the instructions of an official higher in his position when he ordered to accept and pay for the work. At the same time, he was aware that out of 220 wells, only 60 had been drilled, no actual geodetic survey had been carried out, and all project documentation was from the 90s. The fake acts were signed by Mandrov. In the summer of 2022, all the defendants in the criminal case were detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center. Mandrov is accused of exceeding his powers, which entailed grave consequences. The official admitted the blame for this only partially. The investigation into his case has not yet been completed, and the defendant is under house arrest. Mitvol has been in jail for a year, despite the fact that he fully admitted his guilt and made a deal with the investigation. He is charged with a particularly large-scale fraud. During this time, Konstantin Dimitrov’s preventive measure was reduced to house arrest. As for the former chairman of the government, Lapshin, he came under criminal prosecution in February of this year for having exceeded his authority. It was he who gave the go-ahead to sign the acts of acceptance of the adjusted construction estimates that did not correspond to reality. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback
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The businessman Yevgeny Svistula entered the fishing industry of Kamchatka, having received part of the assets in their redistribution with the old-timers of the industry. His main business is in the capital, where he owns a stake in a fitness center on Zvenigorodskaya. Nevertheless, Svistula has been noted more than once in transactions tied to the interests of the Alexander Tkachev family, in particular the Agrocomplex holding. Last spring, Svistula established Land Reserve LLC with an authorized capital of 10,000 rubles, and immediately bought 66,000 hectares of land with dairy farms from the Czech PPF Group, which left Russia. Experts estimated this agricultural business at 7 billion rubles. A few weeks later, Svistula left the Land Reserve, transferring a share to Maria Lisitsina, a frequent figure in the business transactions of the Tkachev family. Now dairy farms belong to the Dyadkovskaya agricultural firm, which is formally part of their empire. In winter, Svistula bought out 50% in Vityaz Avto LLC. And recently it became known that now the entire company with a site for the extraction of sockeye salmon and a salmon plant worth 12 billion rubles is controlled by him. Judging by the registers, Vityaz Auto still belongs to Okeanrybflot. However, there is a twin company where Svistula owns 1%, and the rest belongs to the Krasnodar company Vostochny Aktiv. It is very similar to a multi-move before a raider takeover, and a new legal entity is needed to secure against possible claims from third parties. Alexander Tkachev’s father, back in the USSR, held senior positions in the Kuban agricultural sector, and laid the foundation for the future family business. And after his son became the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, and then the Minister of Agriculture, active expansion began in other regions. Even without power levers, Tkachev has the resources to constantly expand his business. Last year, Agrocomplex was recognized as the largest landowner in the country. Under his control is 660 thousand hectares, worth more than 150 billion rubles. The holding itself consists of more than 60 enterprises dispersed throughout the country. Funds for buying were always available, since the business of the former minister was refinanced by large banks, despite the fact that the holding for a long time brought huge losses. It was worth it, since in 2022 his profit amounted to more than 10 billion rubles. Last year, the holding bought several large enterprises at once. For example, a large livestock asset “Russian pork”. Previously, it was owned by Vadim Varshavsky, a former Rostov deputy. In 2019, he went to jail for tax evasion, and in 2021, he was given a sentence for credit fraud. Also, structures associated with Agrocomplex bought the Druzhba Narodov Agro-Industrial Holding, the largest agricultural holding in Crimea. It includes 20 thousand hectares, the Crimean Fruit Company, which produces fruits and berries, poultry farms, a meat processing plant and pig farms. ©️ Kompromat Group | Feedback