The story of the “smuggler” Belousov. Part 4. How to cut 85 million rubles instead of a forest?
We continue to talk about the difficult and generously littered with budget money path of the Irkutsk entrepreneur Sergei Belousov, his accomplices and partners. We are publishing another batch of eyewitness accounts of the criminal activities of the forest “Escobar”. We are again talking about pumping budget money through a chain of Sergei Belousov’s companies.
Who has not followed the previous publications, we recall that in the first, second and third parts of the story of the “smuggler” Belousov, we spoke and clearly showed the schemes of a blatant and completely unprecedented scam with federal money allocated for correctional colony No. 15 of the GUFSIN in the Irkutsk region in 2014- 2016. These facts have already become the subject of verification by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor’s office of the Irkutsk region. According to our data, numerous appeals from residents of our region, outraged by the arbitrariness and lawlessness of the criminal community of Sergei Belousov, were taken under control by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and directly by the leadership of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Irkutsk Region.Ir
Deputies of various levels of government did not stand aside either. Thus, Anatoly Obukhov, deputy of the Communist Party faction of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk region, responded to our call in the second part of our investigation to the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk Region to intervene in the situation. The people’s choice was outraged by the fact that millions of rubles allocated for firefighting in 2014-2015 were embezzled, and thousands of hectares of forest were simply destroyed by forest fires. The appeal was sent to the prosecutor of the Irkutsk region Andrei Khanko, the head of the regional Investigative Committee Anatoly Sitnikov, as well as the Minister of the Forestry Complex of the Irkutsk region.
From the answer of the deputy head of the first investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the ICR for the Irkutsk region S.N. Bazarov dated March 3, 2023, it follows that the regional TFR has not yet become interested in the likely embezzlement of budget funds in the execution of a state contract. All the facts of embezzlement of budgetary funds stated by the deputy were sent to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Irkutsk Region for “operational verification”. And here it is also reported that such facts in the foreseeable future will still be checked for crimes in the manner of articles 144-145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation.
However, the answer to the deputy from the Deputy Prosecutor of the Irkutsk Region V.V. Babenko of March 6, 2023 turned out to be more informative. In it, the supervisory authority reported that, it turns out, for the same episodes of the theft of budget funds by Vereshchak and Belousov, a report on the discovered crime was registered on December 21, 2022 in the Investigative Committee of the ICR in the Irkutsk Region. The material of the check was transferred to the Investigative Department for the city of Angarsk of the Investigative Committee of the ICR for the Irkutsk Region. And there, on January 19, 2023, a decision was made to refuse to initiate a criminal case under the article on fraud and abuse of power by Vereshchak.
This resolution was canceled only on February 22, 2023 after the intervention of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Irkutsk Region at the request of Deputy A.V. Obukhov. Based on the results of the prosecutor’s check, the decision previously issued on October 5, 2018 by investigator O.V. Shalbayeva to refuse to initiate a criminal case against Andrey Vereshchak under Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (tax evasion) was also canceled. That is, the regional investigative committee had two audit materials initiated by the leadership of the regional TFR and illegally “covered up”, and it is possible that with the knowledge of the same leaders of the regional TFR.
Checks were carried out on the facts of multimillion-dollar embezzlement of federal budget funds, because such lawlessness affects the interests of federal authorities. Despite these egregious facts, one of the leaders of the investigative department, S.N. Bazarov – completely unashamedly informs the deputy of the regional parliament false information that no checks were carried out in accordance with articles 144-145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation on the facts indicated by him. And the deputy’s appeal about the monstrous corruption in the bodies of the Federal Penitentiary Service from the TFR is simply kicked off to the police. Let us remind readers that the initiation of criminal cases on corruption in government bodies is the direct responsibility of the TFR, and not the police.
According to our information, at the same time, the head of the investigative department of the TFR for the city of Angarsk, and it is possible that, by agreement with his immediate supervisors from Irkutsk, he frankly “covers up” the monstrous facts of plundering the federal budget.
The above incidents simply scream at least about the interest of the leaders of the TFR in the Irkutsk region to ignore the facts of the plunder of our country, and at the maximum require close attention to the Irkutsk region from the central apparatus of the TFR.
Our sources said that Sergei Belousov could have spent billions of rubles from timber smuggling and embezzlement of federal budget funds to bribe law enforcement officers. Perhaps that is why Belousov manages to stay at large for so long.
Shergin plus Petrenev
Sergei Belousov, according to his former partners, achieved complete impunity in the area of timber smuggling, being well acquainted with the former deputy prosecutor of the Irkutsk region Roman Shergin. In April 2021, prosecutor Shergin went to the bar.
The fact of their close acquaintance was confirmed to our editorial office by several sources at once. Just the competence of the Deputy Prosecutor of the Irkutsk region Roman Shergin included supervision of the region’s forest complex. And just during the period of Shergin’s work, the prosecutor’s office of the Irkutsk region “did not notice” the facts of the sale of IK-15 roundwood to Belousov’s firms at a price eight times lower than the market value.
The second agency that could be interested in illegal felling of forest plantations on forest plots IK-14 and IK-15 of the GUFSIN in the Irkutsk region is the Ministry of the Forest Complex of the Irkutsk Region. It was Roman Shergin who was supposed to supervise his activities. This ministry was headed by a former prosecutor’s worker – Dmitry Petrenev. Prior to his appointment as minister, he served as an environmental prosecutor. Petrenev led the ministry from December 23, 2019 to July 30, 2021. Roman Shergin resigned as deputy prosecutor on April 7, 2021. Accident? We don’t think.
And now, on July 19, 2021, Roman Shergin, ex-Deputy Prosecutor of the Irkutsk Region, and Dmitry Petrenev, the Minister of the Forestry Complex, together establish a commercial company – Alternativa Center for Legal Solutions LLC. The main line of its activity was the provision of legal services. That is, for at least 11 days, the regional official Petrenev illegally combined his commercial activities in the provision of legal services with the work of the regional minister.
The group of retired prosecutors who guard the interests of Belousov is supplemented by the personality of Alexander Zarypov. He has been working in the structure of Belousov for a long time and for a long time was the director of nine structural divisions of the community – Woodexport + LLC, TPK Region 38 LLC, Sayany LLC, Siberian Larch LLC, Teplocenter LLC and others.
Before his service to Belousov’s money, our hero Zarypov worked as the prosecutor of the city of Shelekhov, and then as an investigator. In addition to Zarypov, the former security officer Valery Varennikov works in the Belousov community. Just the latter is well acquainted with the operational situation in the field of illegal extraction of forest plantations and smuggling of timber to China.
Being in the service of law enforcement agencies, Varennikov very cleverly combined state interests with his personal ones. A well-known businessman in Irkutsk, Pyotr Trukhin, told our source that several years ago he was forced to give Varennikov a car for “protection” of his timber business. The source also told us that Varennikov had greatly improved his financial situation at the expense of Denis Shlykov, a forest smuggler from the city of Zima. And, by the way, his activities were also closely connected with IK-32 of the GUFSIN in the Irkutsk region.
Varennikov in the Belousov community heads the security unit and is responsible for Belousov’s communications with law enforcement agencies.
The structural composition of the members of the Belousov community was supplemented over time by the necessary people, specialists in their field. Apparently, everyone controlled and directed cash flows from logging to the redirection of stolen budget funds from the FSIN system to the accounts of enterprises and entrepreneurs controlled by Belousov’s structures. There are also accountants, and former employees of the customs authorities and the investigative committee.
In the structure of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the interests of Belousov were represented by Dmitry Anenko, an employee of IK-15, who very successfully combined his personal forestry business with the work of controlling the removal of timber from the lands of the colony.
Meanwhile, according to our sources, Sergey Belousov’s group of companies continued to develop budget millions.
Sawing government contracts
In the first three parts of our investigation, we talked about a scam with 64 million rubles, which was carried out through a fictitious state contract by the head of IK-15 Andrey Vereshchak with Siberia LLC in 2014-2015, where Belousov could receive over 30 million budget money, and, in addition, he could take out and send for export more than 700 thousand cubic meters of timber according to fake documents from IK-15.
However, the greed of Vereshchak and Belousov with a contract with Siberia LLC pushed our heroes to new achievements. As soon as they “chewed” the first federal millions, an appetite immediately appeared for the next tranches from the budget.
In 2017, Andrey Vereshchak, the head of IK-15, with a goal that is already clear to everyone, decides to announce purchases for the transportation and sawing of several thousand cubic meters of timber. The fate and origin of the forest itself has not yet been revealed.
And now Belousov’s protégé reappears at the electronic auction – Lespromtorg LLC, registered in the city of Usolye-Sibirskoye at the same address as Belousov’s other enterprises. The company was registered for one of the participants in the chain of withdrawal of budgetary funds under a state contract with Siberia LLC – Vladimir Evdokimov.
In the absence of other participants, Evdokimov wins at all auctions, and a plentiful rain of federal millions poured into the bank accounts of his Lespromtorg LLC.
According to open sources, in 2017 Lespromtorg LLC was a supplier in as many as 17 state procurement contracts in IK-15 in the amount of 85,160,400 rubles. Let’s see what these contracts are.
So, contract No. 0334100006317000041_202989 in the amount of 16,145,325.00 rubles. The contract is concluded on April 19, 2017 IK-15 with the sole participant Lespromtorg LLC. The subject of the contract is the transportation of 11,475.00 cubic meters of timber from its location – Irkutsk region, Cheremkhovo district – to its destination – Irkutsk region, the city of Angarsk (consignee FKU IK-15 GUFSIN of Russia in the Irkutsk region) to another address: Irkutsk region, the city of Usolye-Sibirskoye (consignee of FKU IK-15 of the GUFSIN of Russia in the Irkutsk region).
The strangeness of this contract is that IK-15 has its own transport for transporting timber, on which, most likely, the entire volume of timber was transported. The further fate of these 11,475.00 cubic meters of wood is unknown.
The second contract No. 0334100006317000059_202989 for the amount of 13,770,000 rubles. The purchase was placed on April 24, 2017, and its requirement was the provision of sawing services for 9,180.00 cubic meters of wood. Probably, this volume of wood was not included in the 11,475.00 cubic meters that were brought to the territory of IK-15, most likely for sawing and subsequent processing by prisoners.
To make it clear to the reader: the territory of IK-15 is a closed regime area, where there are about a thousand prisoners. The colony has its own industrial site, where the prisoners were supposed to work, sawing the forest. This is the purpose of reforming prisoners. But by a strange coincidence, the forest is processed instead of prisoners by employees of the structure of Sergei Belousov for the money allocated to the colony.
In fact, apparently, the prisoners themselves sawed this forest for free, and in order to steal the money, a cunning scheme was devised with the involvement of a third-party contractor to allegedly cut the forest.
The third contract with Lespromtorg LLC No. 0334100006317000072_202989 dated July 3, 2017 in the amount of 22,125,075 rubles. Under the terms of the contract, 15,725 cubic meters of timber from forest plots must be transported to the territory of IK-15. That is, this is the third batch of wood. The fate of this wood is also unknown.
Here, probably, the same trick was done as with previous contracts – an imitation of a service to steal budget funds.
The fourth contract with Lespromtorg LLC for the amount of 18,870,000.00 rubles dated July 3, 2017 again for sawing timber in the amount of 12,580.00 cubic meters. This is the fourth batch of wood. And here again, the same scheme cut the forests of the colony in an unknown territory for an unknown purpose.
And such a trick was done with federal money 13 more times, until Vereshchak emptied all the accounts of correctional colony No. 15 entrusted to him.
So, let’s now digest again the information that was very abundantly presented by the regional and federal media after the arson of the colony and the riot in April 2020. According to officials of the Federal Penitentiary Service, a large industrial base for wood processing burned down there. There should have been sawmills, machine tools, wood dryers. There must be timber trucks for the removal of timber from the plots. But here we see that all activities for the transportation, processing and harvesting of wood were carried out by third-party organizations belonging to Sergei Belousov. The colony itself did not engage in any economic activity in the forestry sector.
With the help of completely simple and completely primitive manipulations with budget money, a generous stream of cash injections from Andrey Vereshchak, apparently again flowed into the pockets of Sergei Belousov. As usual in such cases, no one noticed anything strange in the transportation and sawing of the timber. Prisoners in colony No. 15 continued to work for Vereshchak and made him the richest “owner” on the list of heads of colonies in the Irkutsk region.
Belousov’s connections in the prosecutor’s office and other departments helped the swindlers “bend over” the law in full, and the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia continued to finance their appetites.
There is every reason to believe that this situation continued until the very arson of the colony. In the meantime, the investigating authorities continue to check our publications, all members of the Belousov community have very good chances to write a confession in order to avoid further criminal prosecution under serious articles on large-scale embezzlement, timber smuggling.
Refusal to further participate in the criminal activities of the Belousov community, active assistance to the investigation and repentance for the committed act is the basis for exemption from criminal liability under the note to Article 210 of the Criminal Code, which speaks of participation in a criminal community.