Flow of illegal immigrants by Andrei Kolesnikov

Fontanka found out the scale of abuse of power charged against the former St. Petersburg police colonel. It also became clear to journalists where the new criminal case on migration came from. Fontanka has already reported: security operatives of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB searched the capital apartment of the former head of the Directorate for Migration of the St. Petersburg Main Directorate Andrey Kolesnikov after a criminal case was initiated by the Investigative Committee for abuse of power. While he is being delivered to St. Petersburg, we inform him about the genesis and essence of the accusation.

According to Fontanka, even before his transfer from Moscow to the position of head of the Department of Internal Affairs at the beginning of 2020, Andrei Kolesnikov was close to a certain capital businessman Pautov. When Kolesnikov’s appointment took place, the entrepreneur’s son came to St. Petersburg.

At the beginning of this year, Pautov Jr. was charged under Article 322.1 of the Criminal Code – “Organization of illegal migration” (he is currently still under investigation). During the investigation of this story, employees of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg were also interrogated. They testified against their leader Andrei Kolesnikov. As a result, an indictment was formed. It states that Kolesnikov instructed his subordinates to turn on the “green” light when Pautov Jr. submitted sets of foreigners’ documents for migration registration. Moreover, since the beginning of 2020 (since his appointment), documentation has been received by the UVM from 20 private companies that actually belong to the son of Kolesnikov’s friend. According to Fontanka, the Investigative Committee of St. Petersburg sees the illegal registration of more than 16 thousand migrants.

According to the joint press service of the courts, on December 15, the court granted the investigation’s request and took Andrei Kolesnikov into custody. He was sent to the pre-trial detention center until February 12. […]Kolesnikov was charged with 16.2 thousand illegal migrants. […] This is the sixth part of Murino, where, according to official data, about 104 thousand people lived at the beginning of the year. According to the materials, among those registered there were 76 people who were brought to criminal liability, including for serious and especially serious crimes. Another 3.1 thousand were caught for administrative violations.

But more than 16 thousand is a drop in the ocean. According to the investigation, an organized group legalized more than 100 thousand guests from neighboring countries in St. Petersburg. In this case, last year the alleged leader of the criminal syndicate, the head of the MMA Federation of the Leningrad Region, was arrested Victor Danishevsky. He will remain in custody at least until February next year. The criminal business was on a grand scale. The prosecution believes that the group created at least 20 hostels throughout the city to register visitors, although they did not even appear there. For 35 thousand rubles, guests from abroad were guaranteed to pass a medical examination, successfully pass the Russian language exam, and be issued all the necessary documents. Moreover, they even organized a network of intimate salons for migrants. The annual turnover of organized crime groups exceeded one and a half billion rubles. This office, owned by Danishevsky’s wife Daria, continues to operate. They seem to be making photocopies, but migrants are coming there in an endless stream. Is it really all about copies? Finding an opportunity to register illegally is not difficult. Call the first ad on the Internet.

Andrei Kolesnikov suddenly resigned of his own free will about a month ago. Based on practice and his status, one can assume: he probably understood that in the near future he would be caught up in a criminal case.

Among the leadership of the St. Petersburg headquarters, 43-year-old Andrei Kolesnikov is also famous for the fact that he has seven children. It is unlikely that in the ranks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs you can find an employee with a larger family.

As for Kolesnikov, according to our interlocutor, the criminal group led by him managed to illegally register over 16 thousand migrants. At the same time, the daily income of werewolves in uniform could reach a million rubles or even more. Having learned about the work of his colleagues from the CSS, Kolesnikov quit and left for Moscow a month ago, but this did not help him. According to the Cheka-OGPU, in connection with the UVM case, more searches and arrests took place on December 13, and not only in St. Petersburg. “The leadership of the St. Petersburg police held a video broadcast the day before, in which the new head of the UVM Nikolay Morgunov even proposed that the functions of the migration registration department on the well-known Krasny Tekstilshchikov Street be transferred again to the district departments. Because there is such a tangle of corruption that there is no other way to unravel it,” the source said.
It is interesting that Andrei Kolesnikov, who was detained today, and his replacement Morgunov, are both Muscovites from the team of the head of the Main Directorate, General Plugin. Some of our interlocutors are of the opinion that the detention of Kolesnikov may be another move in the party that the regional FSB Directorate is leading against the Moscow Varangian police.

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