Suspect in illegal withdrawal of property Sergei Molozhavyi was arrested in absentia.
On Wednesday, October 10, the Kuzminsky District Court of Moscow issued a ruling on the arrest in absentia of Sergei Molozhavyi. He worked as Deputy Minister of Property relations from 1997 to 2000. As the press service of the court told RBC, Molozhavyi is suspected of fraud on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code). The maximum penalty under this article is up to ten years in prison.
The police put Molozhavoy on the wanted list.
RBC sent a request to the information center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
What is the former deputy minister accused of?
A case of fraud was opened in July in one of the district departments of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) in Moscow. Initially, it stated that unidentified persons had developed a plan to acquire all the property of a Dutch company by illegally alienating in their favor 50% of the company’s share certificates owned by Igor Gitlin. This company is the sole shareholder of the offshore company North East Partners B.V. The materials say that “unidentified persons managed to gain control over property owned by the company: 99.9% of the shares of Goldenberg Invest JSC, 99.9% of the shares of Partner-Nedvizhimost LLC, as well as buildings located in Moscow in Bolshoy Koptevsky Proezd, on Sadovnicheskaya Street and several real estate properties in Voronezh.”
In a telephone conversation, Igor Gitlin confirmed that he was a victim in the fraud case, but promised to discuss the details of the case after returning to Moscow.
The press service of the Kuzminsky court reported that, according to the case materials, Molozhavyi is suspected of withdrawing property from the Goldenberg Invest company. According to the register of legal entities, Sergei Molozhavyi was the head of the Goldenberg Invest joint-stock company until 2021. The company was registered in 2010 in Moscow. The main activity of Goldenberg Invest was the construction and management of own or leased non-residential real estate. In 2021, the company’s losses amounted to 22.9 million rubles. Its founder was also Vadim Gitlin, the brother of Igor Gitlin.
What is known about Molozhavoy
Molozhavyi was appointed in 1995 to the position of deputy head of the department of normative and methodological support of the State Committee for State Property Management, and since 1997 he already worked as Secretary of State, Deputy Chairman of the Committee, then – after the committee received the status of a ministry – he became Deputy Minister of Property Relations of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country). From 1995 to 1997, the ministry was headed by Alfred Koch.
Molozhavyi is called one of the members of Koch’s team. Kommersant wrote that he participated in the preparation of the privatization laws of 1997 and 2001, and was also a participant in the largest privatization projects, supervised the activities of the departments of industry, transport, financial organizations, real estate, and negotiated with the missions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. After leaving the ministry in 2003, he headed the Technopromexport company. In 2009, this joint-stock company became part of the Rostec structure and Molozhavyi resigned.
A source familiar with the case materials said that until the beginning of 2023 he lived in the capital region, and then left Russia (*aggressor country).
RBC was unable to contact Molozhav; at the time of publication, his Moscow phone was turned off.
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