Tenders “tailored” for “their” contractor, connecting new residential complexes to the network for bribes through intermediaries

How they steal at Vodokanal of St. Petersburg

Tenders “tailored” for “their” contractor, connecting new residential complexes to the network for bribes through intermediaries

Original of this material

© 47news.ru01/16/2024, It became known which company the detained deputy director of St. Petersburg Vodokanal lobbied for, Photo: via @vesti_dezhurnaya_chast

As 47news learned on January 16, the materials of the criminal case against the deputy director of the city Vodokanal Vadim Chernyshov include St. Petersburg LLC Kvarta. In 2022, the company won the competition for the provision of cleaning and maintenance services for buildings and structures on the territory of Vodokanal.

According to the economic police, all confidential information about the conditions of the competition was transferred to Kvarta employees in advance. They also provided Vodokanal employees with commercial proposals, on the basis of which the initial maximum price of 315.5 million rubles was formed. In addition, the documentation included inflated, from the point of view of specialists, qualification requirements for participants. As a result, only “Quarta” entered the competition, and it was recognized as the winner, reducing the price by 0.5%.

By To SPARK, LLC “Kvarta” was registered in 2007 with the profile of activity “management of the operation of non-residential assets for a fee or on a contractual basis.” Revenue for 2022 is 922 million, profit is 50 million. The owner and general director are individuals.

In 2023, the same company won a similar competition for cleaning buildings and territories. Moreover, the procedure was preceded by an increase in the initial price from 350 million to 536 million. According to Chernyshov’s interrogated subordinates, this is at least 100 million higher than the market price. But that’s not all—in addition to “Quarta,” two more participants entered the competition. One of them, Urban Systems LLC, offered a price of 402 million and should have been recognized as the winner, but as the investigation believes, at the insistence of Chernyshov, minor violations were identified in the documentation of this company and the winner was “Kvarta”, which reduced the price by 1.5%.

At the time of preparation of publication, there was no comment from the Kvarta company.

Let us remind you that the deputy director of the city Vodokanal, Vadim Chernyshov, was detained late in the evening on January 15. A criminal case has been opened against him for “exceeding official authority causing grave consequences.” Searches were carried out at the workplace and place of residence.

According to the Investigative Committee, Chernyshov gave instructions to employees to inflate initial procurement prices, and employees of a commercial organization took part in the development of tender documentation. Simply put, the conditions were “tailored” for a specific company.

According to official data, Chernyshev has been in his position since 2022, his responsibilities include logistics, organization of procurement and material support. Previously, for a year he served as director of procurement activities at Vodokanal.

Let us remind you that Vodokanal employees have been involved in criminal cases for several years now. So, today 47news reported that a series of criminal cases have been initiated against employees involved in issuing technical conditions for developers. […]

How the “deciders” and managers of Vodokanal of St. Petersburg drank water

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© 47news.ru01/16/2024, Builders were covered

Victor Smirnov

In December, the Investigative Committee of St. Petersburg opened a series of criminal cases against recipients of multimillion-dollar bribes at the city Vodokanal. The materials came from the police, where cases of abuse of power by the same employees were investigated. That is, the light composition of “excess” became heavy bribes on an especially large scale. 47news assumed this outcome.

As our publication reported, developers received technical conditions for commissioning new residential complexes, but did not pay hundreds of millions for the necessary reconstruction of networks. The damage to Vodokanal is estimated at 1 billion rubles. The damage to the city’s networks is not easy to assess; it is potentially too large-scale.

According to investigators, the developers FSK Leader North-West, Dalpiterstroy, Rosstroyinvest, Otdelstroy, Bonava and a number of other large developers took advantage of the crafty technical conditions. All of them are exempt from criminal prosecution – the decision is rather political. Procedurally, they “proactively” gave evidence. In a number of cases, companies remained formally in the shadows, citing official contracts with intermediaries who dealt directly with Vodokanal.

There is an opinion that they deliberately created difficulties for developers by pushing them to an informal solution. Vodokanal’s work has been criticized by developers in recent years.

Thus, FSK Leader North-West had an agreement with SPb Voda LLC to draw up technical conditions for the Moskovsky residential complex in the Pushkinsky district. The official fee for technical connection is 50 million rubles. The general director of Voda, Maxim Krasavin, agreed to resolve the issue for 9.9 million. As he will tell during the investigation, he handed over his own money on his own initiative. The contract for the provision of services to the developer was for 35 million.

Krasavin contacted the leading specialist of the Connections Department, Anton Weber. The next link is the leading specialist Artem Ivanov, followed by the head of the permitting documentation service Vyacheslav Goldin (47news sorted it out his seized property worth 600 million), deputy director of the department for the implementation of connections Alexey Gribulin and head of the department for connections Pavel Alexandrov. The lion’s share (9.4 million) was intended for the last three. As a result, Weber and Ivanov received “mediation in bribery,” and the trio of managers received a “bribe” and all this “in a group of persons by prior conspiracy.” Krasavin was released from liability for reporting a crime. […]

In the case of the Otdelstroy company, technical conditions were required for the Novy Lessner residential complex on Bolshoy Sampsonievsky (we will detail analyzed this episode). The individual tariff amounted to 100 million rubles. According to the security officials, the issue was resolved for 12 million through St. Petersburg resident Roman Zagalsky. He is known in the construction services market as an experienced negotiator. He was in direct contact with Goldin, and he was carrying Alexandrova. The money was handed over in the parking lot near the Vodokanal branch building on Manchester Street. Moreover, the part was transferred through a courier who was unaware of the contents. This place appears in several other criminal cases (don’t be shy).

There is no systematic tariff system for the recipients of bribes. So, in one case, the official tariff was 150 million, but they asked for 6 million to resolve the issue. The method of transfer varied. In one of the episodes, money was deposited in a safe deposit box, which greatly facilitated the work of the investigation.

The Rosstroyinvest company (RSTI) needed technical specifications for a residential complex on Zavodskaya Street in Ust-Slavyanka in the south of the city. Officially, the developer had to pay 172 million. According to the Investigative Committee, the director of Balinveststroy LLC (part of RSTI) Roman Filatov took up the matter. He contacted Goldin and received an offer to pay 14 million. The money was transferred at the Rosstroyinvest office on Dobrolyubova Street and also through a courier. By the way, an ethnographic detail: according to SPARK, Balinveststroy belongs to the chairman of the St. Petersburg construction committee Igor Kreslavsky (shares in his mother’s trust).

The Bonava company with Swedish owners calculated a tariff of 120 million for connecting the premium residential complex Magnifika Lifestyle on Magnitogorskaya Street. Bonava entered into a contract worth 52 million with SMU-86 LLC for the preparation of the necessary documentation. According to investigators, the co-owner of this company, Pavel Malinin, turned to the aforementioned leading specialist of Vodokanal Ivanov. They say it was a coincidence that Ivanov’s wife was a co-owner of SMU-86. Then the Goldin-Aleksandrov chain was activated. 3 million rubles changed hands. The relatively small amount should not be surprising; let’s not forget about 52 million under the official agreement.

The only company whose business did not degenerate from “abuse of authority” into “bribe” was Dalpiterstroy. According to investigators, for receiving technical conditions without performing actual work, the developer transferred three studio apartments in Shushary. The mediator was Goldin, and the addressee was the head of the technical sector of Vodokanal, Elena Barmina (she is in custody on a completely different case, but also about accepting bribes at Vodokanal).

With the exception of the lady, everyone is under subscription, Goldin is under house arrest. In case of a particularly large bribe in a group, the lower limit is 8 years in prison and an eighty-fold fine. According to 47news, the case will go to trial in the first quarter of the coming year.

The logic of the authorities not to touch the developers is clear. If you rewind the receipt of technical conditions, then the financial burden will fall on the developers, and this may agitate the shareholders. This is not good, especially before the main elections. On the other hand, all uncompleted work on the reconstruction of old networks and the connection of new residential complexes to them will inevitably affect the quality of water supply in St. Petersburg. Perhaps the latest avalanche-like series of utility failures is proof of this.

47news invited development companies to comment on the situation. At the time of preparation of publication, there were no takers. The Vodokanal press service promised to study the issue.