An appeal to Putin, a hunger strike due to non-payment of wages brought the conflict around the once successful Lotas agricultural enterprise from the Krasnoufimsky district to a new round.
After a meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture of the Sverdlovsk Region, employees leave the company en masse, without having achieved the termination of the criminal prosecution of the former head Vladimir Aimetov, who since 2012 has been “pulling” the enterprise out of the financial hole. The manager was accused of selling more than a thousand cows for nothing to his ex-wife, IP Aimetova V.I. True, in the course of proceedings in the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region, it turned out that back in 2012, under a lease agreement, the animals were transferred to the company by Valentina Aimetova. The entrepreneur took her property after the “nominal” owner decided to take back the successful agricultural enterprise. And the sale and purchase agreement turned out to be a fake, thanks to which the new management of the asset tried to return expensive animals. Another scheme with a possible raider seizure was attempted in the neighboring Achitsky district. There, entrepreneur Knyazev simply falsified the results of a meeting of members of the Bakryazhsky cooperative, who allegedly elected him as the new chairman. True, two dead people and one man, who, due to illness, in principle, cannot leave the house, were able to sign the protocol of the in-person voting. Interest in a relatively small enterprise is associated with the proximity of its fields to the future Ekaterinburg-Kazan HSR.
Employees of Lotas LLC (Krasnoufimsky district of the Sverdlovsk region) are leaving the agricultural enterprise en masse, the work of which was taken over by the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin. They are employed by the individual entrepreneur V.I. Aimetova, who owned a minority stake (33%) in the authorized capital of the legal entity.
In December last year, about 200 Lotas employees turned to Vladimir Putin with a request to sort out the situation with the “raider seizure” of a profitable agricultural enterprise. In addition, people asked to release from criminal prosecution the former director Vladimir Aimetov, who since 2012 has been “raising the economy”. And already at the end of January of this year, residents of the villages of Sarsy and Sarsy-Second decided to go on a hunger strike due to the seizure of the enterprise and non-payment of wages.
Vladimir Aimetov
Photo: Alexander Sorin
“Our ministry keeps the situation under control. The employees of the enterprise should not suffer, and the sowing campaign should take place. On Monday, a meeting was held with all parties to the conflict. We agreed that all people will be employed, there should be no debt, ”said Artem Bakhterev, Minister of Agro-Industrial Complex and Consumer Market of the Sverdlovsk Region.
The new head of Lotos LLC, Mikhail Egorov, has repeatedly reported in courts and in the media that, using his official position, Vladimir Aimetov in 2021 sold the property and animals of the company to his ex-wife Valentina Aimetova for a pittance. Based on this information, a criminal case was initiated under Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Illicit enrichment on an especially large scale”.
Meanwhile, Valentina Aimetova has a different vision of the current situation. The family started their business by growing potatoes in the village of Sarsy-Second. Later, the farm grew, and the farmers were doing well. They decided to open a new LLC to engage in, among other things, dairy farming.
“When Muradov Logman Khalid oglu (who owns 52% of the authorized capital of Lotas) found out that we were planning to open a new company, in a neighborly way he offered us to work on the basis of Lotas. We agreed. They were registered in the village of Golenishchevo, his brother stayed to work on their territory with a small herd of sheep. We did not delve into his activities. Within the framework of a gentleman’s agreement, they themselves began to work as Lotas LLC. Things were going uphill, a new cowshed was built. In March last year, Muradov’s representatives called Vladimir Ivanovich and offered to pay 50 million. They said if you don’t give back the money, we will put you in jail,” said Valentina Aimetova.
After Aimetov refused to pay, in April 2021, a meeting of owners appointed Mikhail Yegorov as the new head. At the same meeting, it was decided to apply to the investigating authorities with a statement on the actions of the ex-director. It is noteworthy that they forgot to invite the owner of a 33 percent share to the meeting. In parallel with this, it turned out that Vladimir Aimetov, under a certain sale and purchase agreement, gave his ex-wife more than 1.4 thousand heads of cows and calves for nothing. Lagman Muradov tried to challenge this agreement in the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region.
In the process, interesting facts were revealed. In particular, the main owner of Lotas, who never appeared in court, and issued a power of attorney for representation from Crimea in the process, was unable to provide a contract for the sale of animals, allegedly signed by the Aimetovs. A copy of the document was present in the file, but it was provided by the Krasnoufimsk veterinary station for combating animal diseases. After lawyer’s inquiries, it turned out that this copy was provided to the officials by the new director, Mikhail Yegorov, and they had never seen the originals.
Meanwhile, in 2012 and 2018, Valentina Aimetova, under lease agreements, provided Lotas with all the listed livestock, as she temporarily suspended her farming activities. Muradov’s representatives in the courts of two instances insisted that these contracts were forged, but both the former accountant of the enterprise and the Krasnoufimsk department of the agro-industrial complex of the Ministry of Agro-Industrial Complex and Consumer Market of the Sverdlovsk Region, which was notified of the transfer of cattle, confirmed their authenticity.
The courts of two instances considered reliable the explanations of Valentina Aimetova that “in 2011, Aimetov V.I., who carries out independent economic activity in the same region in a similar area, actually took over further activities in the LoTaS company from Muradov L.Kh., who subsequently did not carry out activities in the company, (…) after the interception in 2021 of corporate control in the company, all livestock was returned to the defendant.” It is important that the court considered the sale and purchase agreement falsified, thanks to the cancellation of which Muratov tried to return the cows. The decision of the court has already entered into force.
A similar situation with the falsification of documents and the seizure of power has developed among farmers in the neighboring Achitsky municipal district. The Bakryazhsky rural consumer cooperative, which has been led by Vladimir Nekrasov since 2009, was under attack. The company is engaged in both the cultivation of fodder and fodder grasses, and dairy farming. In September last year, workers learned that their SEC suddenly changed ownership. According to the Federal Tax Service, Yekaterinburg businessman Andrey Knyazev was elected a new leader at a certain face-to-face meeting, at which people were not present.
Vladimir Nekrasov
Photo: Achitskaya Gazeta
The cooperative had to urgently go to court to regain the opportunity to manage the activities of the agricultural enterprise. During the process, it turned out that a certain protocol of the meeting was provided to the tax office, the signatures of which were put by two dead people. In addition, one of the signatories in court stated that she did not participate in any meetings and saw Knyazev only once when he brought documents related to the SEC.
As a result, the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region canceled Knyazev’s right to manage the agricultural enterprise. It is noteworthy that the candidate for the post of chairman wrote a statement to the police about the actions of the real head of the cooperative, Vladimir Nekrasov. They also tried to accuse him of withdrawing property, but the case was closed for lack of corpus delicti. At the same time, the police opened a case on the falsification of documents by Andrey Knyazev.
It is known about the businessman that he is a co-owner (22.1% of the authorized capital) of FPC Alliance LLC from Yekaterinburg, which trades in solid, liquid and gaseous fuels, including liquefied natural gas and oil. Observers attribute Knyazev’s interest in the agricultural enterprise to the latter’s possession of land that passes in close proximity to the federal highway Yekaterinburg-Perm, as well as where the high-speed highway (HSR) Yekaterinburg-Kazan will pass.
“I don’t understand why he needs all this, Knyazev does not understand agriculture in principle. Now I bombarded the authorities with new complaints: we are having a tax audit for three years, a statement to the Economic Security Department (Department of Economic Security of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk Region. – Approx. Ed.) writes to me. The security forces came, they asked for documents, I think this time the case will be closed. As for the high-speed railway, yes, initially we planned to go through the lands that we cultivate. But then they took a plot nearby. Yes, even if they went through our territory, he would not have received access, we rent almost 2 thousand hectares from the Atompromkompleks company, – Vladimir Nekrasov, chairman of Bakryazhsky SEC, told Pravda UrFO.