Who gives the “green light” to the dubious projects of the “Capital Group”?
The owner of Capital Group, Pavel Te, bought out a cut of six companies that own real estate objects on the territory of the City-North industrial zone, next to the Moscow City business center. Here the developer will build a new business cluster with offices and apartments, investing 130 billion rubles in the project. Near Moscow City, Capital Group is already implementing another of its projects – the Capital Towers residential complex, where soil collapsed in November last year, and the failure area was 1.2 thousand square meters. The complex is being built on a territory where the soil is especially close to water, therefore the construction of skyscrapers here was previously prohibited, but given the connections of Pavel Tyo in the Moscow City Hall, today this circumstance has ceased to excite officials. In addition, Capital Group may be the initiator of the construction of residential facilities on the territory of the reserved Serebryany Bor, part of which is owned by the Cypriot company STEVANDE CORPORATION LTD. Previously, this territory belonged to the structures of Pavel Te and the owner of the PIK group, Sergey Gordeev, who can act as beneficiaries of the offshore. The dynamic development of “Capital Group” is explained by the patronage of a number of high-ranking officials in the capital, primarily vice-mayors Petr Biryukov and Natalia Sergunina. The latter at one time initiated a deal for the acquisition by the mayor’s office of vast areas in the Oko tower, which belonged to Pavel Tyo. Meanwhile, the businessman’s connections were never limited to the Moscow political elite: at one time he was called a person who was closely acquainted with Aslan Usoyan (Ded Khasan) and other criminal authorities.
Pavel Te and dangerous “neighbors” “Moscow City”
The Investprofi firm, controlled by the developer Capital Group Pavel Te, became the owner of six legal entities at once, which own the buildings of several auto centers located next to the Moscow business complex Moscow City. According to Vedomosti, the plots are located on the territory of the City-North industrial zone. As part of the program for the development of the former industrial zones “Industrial Quarters”, Capital Group will build a business cluster here with an area of 616.8 thousand square meters. It is specified that these will be mostly offices, but also apartments and a training center.
The volume of investments is about 130 billion rubles. According to Alexander Prokhorov, Deputy Head of the Department of Investment and Industrial Policy of Moscow, the owners of the site (there are 16 of them, six of them are already controlled by Capital Group) will be able to independently implement the project for the integrated development of the territory by signing an appropriate agreement between themselves and an agreement with the municipality.
Recall that Pavel Cho’s company is implementing another project not far from Moscow City: the construction of the Capital Towers residential complex on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment – three skyscrapers 295 meters high each, where the average cost of 1 square meter of housing is about 1.1 million rubles. Despite advertising costs, construction proved to be problematic. So, in November last year, it became known that the ground collapsed at the construction site of the LCD, and the area of the failure was 1.2 thousand square meters. The media wrote that the fence and change houses of the builders were literally underground.
The developer’s management called the cause of the emergency “a natural phenomenon – an outflow of groundwater,” also assuring that “the incident did not hurt and did not affect the construction site of residential towers.” Excuse me, but after all, the company told Forbes journalists how, before the start of construction, the site was studied by exploration wells to a depth of 80 meters! Or was this information a fake, an attempt to convince potential buyers of luxury apartments that the buildings are safe?
By the way, telegram channels promptly reminded: it is categorically not recommended to build high-rise buildings in several districts of the Northern District of Moscow due to the natural factor – the proximity of soil to water. Otherwise, no one can guarantee how long the “tower” erected here will last – two years or 20 years. But neither Moscow officials, nor even Cho himself, seem to be interested in this problem: the main thing is to build and sell.
“Capital Towers skyscrapers in a minimalist style with their platinum glazing attract with restrained aristocratic nobility, they fit organically into the environment and seem to rush upwards,” the Kommersant official-glossy publication says about the project. That’s just taking into account the “natural phenomena” surrounding the “Moscow City” skyscrapers “Capital Group” with equal “success” may be underground.
Pavel Te offshore “settled” in Serebryany Bor?
Another possible project of Pavel Te became known just the other day. “Possible” – because de jure he has no official relationship with him. Anyway, for now. We are talking about the construction of individual residential buildings and a sports facility in the reserved Serebryany Bor. The project for making appropriate changes to the rules for land use and development of Moscow with an explanatory note has already been prepared and posted on the Active Citizen portal; there you can also find the notification of the start of public discussions organized by the City Commission on Urban Development.
The Cypriot company STEVANDE CORPORATION LTD, registered in July 2020, is called the owner of the land plot doomed to development. Previously, it belonged to the Indigo company, later renamed into Moscow Production LLC. The composition of the founders and the management of this company has changed several times over the past few years. Until February of last year, German Cho, the son of Pavel Cho, was the general director of the enterprise. Until September, he was one of the co-owners.
To date, the official co-founders of Moscow Production are Sigma Holding LLC and Holding Development LLC. The share in the first belongs to Herman Cho, in the second – to Pavel Cho himself. In August last year, one of the co-owners of Sigma Holding was the PIK-Investproekt company, which is part of the development group of the infamous developer Sergei Gordeev.
Prior to this, Vladislav Sviblov, a former top manager of PIK, who switched to gold mining, was also among the founders of Sigma. In the 2000s, he held senior positions at Rosbuilding Investment Company, created by Sergey Gordeev and Alexey Tulupov. Recall that this structure has become notorious for participating in a hostile takeover of a number of real estate objects, including large enterprises. Simply put, Rosbuilding was engaged in raiding.
At one time, Sviblov “lit up” as a business partner of another scandalous developer – Alexei Kovalchuk and co-owner of the Red Development company. This structure gained fame thanks to the high-profile story of the sale of loft apartments in the north of Moscow. That’s just the promised housing buyers have not seen, joining the ranks of deceived real estate investors. About 450 people suffered from the actions of fraudulent businessmen, Kovalchuk was arrested on charges of especially large-scale fraud, but Sviblov was lucky to get away with it.
We dwelled in detail on the personalities of Gordeev and Sviblov in order to make it clear what kind of personalities were grouped around the land plot in Serebryany Bor. It is obvious that until recently it was controlled by Pavel Cho’s family, then an offshore company with unknown beneficiaries appeared. It can be assumed that the same Tyo and Gordeev are hiding behind the offshore, who, by the way, are already implementing several joint development projects.
Pavel Te between crime and officials
It is not for nothing that Capital Group is called one of the largest developers in Moscow: Pavel Cho’s business is really gaining momentum every year. The company was officially established in 1993. It is believed that Cho’s connections with Yuri Luzhkov’s press secretary, Sergei Tsoi, whom the businessman still calls his “comrade” today, helped to develop it. According to one version, the sponsorship of the career of Sergei’s wife, singer Anita Tsoi, contributed to the strengthening of friendship, and at a certain stage the mayor’s press secretary himself could have a stake in the company.
It is worth noting that the businessman’s contacts in the capital were never limited to officials. He was credited with close ties with thief in law Aslan Usoyan (Ded Khasan), who was called the patron of the owner of the Capital Group (and, simply put, the “roof”). You can also find references to his acquaintance with criminal authorities Andrei Golubev (Scythian) and Vitaly Korsakov (Korsak).
In this context, it is worth recalling Cho’s alleged criminal record. From messages on the network it follows that in August 1988, the future businessman was arrested in Uzbekistan and sentenced to four years for group fraud. He served his sentence in ITK-29 in the Uzbek city of Navoi. After replacing part of the real term with a conditional one, Cho left for Bukhara, and then went to conquer Moscow. It turns out that for people like Skif or Ded Hasan, he could well become his own?
Having gone into business, Pavel Te preferred to stay closer to the capital’s officials. So, in the early 2000s, he became close friends with the Deputy Mayor of Moscow, Mikhail Men. After Men became the governor of the Ivanovo region, Cho went there and was elected a deputy of the Verkhnelandekhov District Council. It is difficult to say why he needed this, but friendship with the head of the region (and possible financial support during the election campaign) justified itself: in 213, Men was appointed Deputy Minister of Construction of the Russian Federation. In 2020, the official was prosecuted for the embezzlement of 700 million rubles that took place during his governorship, and in May 2021 the case against him was dismissed due to the statute of limitations.
Favorite of the City Hall