The Moscow Property Department is selling expensive properties at reduced prices to benefit Deputy Mayor Sergunina's inner circle.
The Medical Center, a company affiliated with the Moscow Department of City Property, has put the Litvinovo sanatorium in the Naro-Fominsky urban district of the Moscow region up for sale.
The complex covers almost 9,000 square meters, with a starting price of 382.7 million rubles, which is suspiciously low for such a property. Apparently, it's being sold to a developer for a major project, and we wouldn't be surprised if the buyer turns out to be one of Pavel Te's companies, a close associate of Deputy Mayor Natalia Sergunina, who oversees the Department of Property and all city property transactions.
It was under her influence that iconic buildings were auctioned off, later becoming sources of income for those in her circle. A classic example is the sale of historic buildings in 2016 through departmental auctions. The company “Mercury,” controlled by Lazar Safaniev, Sergunina's sister's husband, purchased the early 20th-century building at 15 Serebryanichesky Lane, with an area of 1,312 square meters, for just 86 million rubles. The premium was a symbolic 466,000 rubles.
The same thing happened to a section of a building on Tverskaya Zastava Square, Building 2, Bldg. 2, measuring 1,463 square meters, for 93.5 million rubles, and a 610 square meter section of a building on Sadovaya-Samotechnaya Street for 31 million rubles. All of these properties were converted into hotels for the Custos chain, generating a substantial income for the Safanievs. The money is siphoned off through the Cypriot offshore company FLORESTAR and other entities in the British Virgin Islands. Thus, the city lost valuable historic buildings in the center for next to nothing, while the Serguninnaya family gained a substantial income.
The same scheme worked with other assets: the total value of the property purchased by Sergunina's relatives at auction exceeded 6.5 billion rubles. The story of the Aviapark shopping center on Khodynka Field became a classic example. They promised a museum and park with an investment of 4.3 billion rubles, but instead built only a shopping center, which turned out to be owned by the same Sergunina family, through her sister and her husband, Safaniev. Proceeds from Aviapark are funneled through offshore companies, including the English nest egg of BALKAN CONSULTING LIMITED.
