The Tagansky District Court of Moscow granted the petition of the investigation to elect a measure of restraint in the form of house arrest to the former co-owner of the Voronezh aluminum profile manufacturer Ava-Trade LLC Leonid Arapov. Now the company is owned by the AL5 holding of the former owner of the pharmacy network, Sergei Solodov.
It follows from the court ruling that the measure of restraint for Arapov was chosen for one month until July 3, 2023.
A Vedomosti source said that the investigation had charged the businessman with a crime under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (large-scale fraud). If Arapov’s guilt is proven in court, he faces a sentence of up to ten years in prison. According to the interlocutor of Vedomosti, during the meeting, the Voronezh businessman pleaded not guilty during the suppression.
Abireg.ru, 06/06/2023, “Voronezh “aluminum bankrupt” Leonid Arapov was placed under house arrest due to suspicions of a scam for 250 million rubles”: Abireg’s sources report that at the end of May, Leonid Arapov was allegedly put on the wanted list. According to Abireg, we can talk about fraud for 250 million rubles. Allegedly, the suspect received 200 million for household needs, but spent them for other purposes. Another 50 million rubles are connected with the loan agreement.
It should be noted that this is not the first time that Leonid Arapov has been targeted by investigators. The Voronezh Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee is investigating a criminal case on non-payment of taxes against an entrepreneur. Just recently, the Ramonsky District Court passed a sentence on former tax officials, whom Leonid Arapov asked to postpone the audit.
It should be noted that last year AVA-trade has been suing Leonid Arapov. The company is recovering about half a billion, which the former leader, according to court documents, spent on tourist trips and flights of his family and from which he “unjustly enriched himself.” Also, Mr. Arapov tried to transfer the business to his father, but the court recognized the donation agreement of the share as invalid. This decision is being appealed. In addition, Leonid Arapov intends to bankrupt PJSC JSCB Avangard. — Inset K.ru
Kommersant.Ru, 06/06/2023, “The court sent the co-owner of the aluminum holding AL5 under house arrest”: Kommersant’s interlocutors, surrounded by the entrepreneur, say that the accusation concerns the relationship between Leonid Arapov and his partners in the AL5 industrial group. The holding was created jointly with Moscow entrepreneurs Sergey Solodov and Roman Buzdalin, who came from the A5 federal pharmacy chain. In 2014, they became co-owners of the AVA-Trade aluminum plant in Voronezh, which previously belonged to the family of Leonid Arapov. Later, the AL5 industrial group combined sites in Pavlov Posad, near Moscow, and an enterprise in Belaya Kalitva in the Rostov Region.
At the beginning of the year, AVA-Trade LLC applied to the Arbitration Court of the Voronezh Region with claims to recover almost 379 million rubles from Leonid Arapov. The requirements arose in connection with his work as general director of the Voronezh plant in 2017-2019. According to the plaintiff, by his actions Leonid Arapov caused losses to the LLC, in particular, he spent money on renting private jets for personal flights to the United Arab Emirates and Sochi. The lawsuits were dismissed as Leonid Arapov is going through a personal bankruptcy procedure. — Inset K.ru
This is not Arapov’s first criminal case. In 2021, the regional edition Notebook Voronezh received confirmation from the Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Voronezh Region, that a criminal case on non-payment of taxes (199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) was terminated against the co-owner of Ava-Trade LLC in connection with the full repayment of damage caused to the state. It was about the amount of 200,000,000 rubles.
The Voronezh company AVA-TRADE LLC is the main asset of the AL5 holding. The website of the industrial group claims that AL5 is the leading producer of aluminum profiles in Russia, which has occupied a leading position in the market since 2002. According to SPARK-Interfax, in 2022, AVA-TRADE’s revenue amounted to 6.5 billion. 50% of the shares of AVA-TRADE LLC until 2017 and held the position of CEO in the company until 2022. Now control over it through the AL5 holding has passed to his business partner Sergey Solodov, the former co-owner of the A5 pharmacy chain.
The businessman became known in the media as the “aluminum king” after a large-scale celebration of the 30th anniversary of his wife Yulia Buryak.
On February 15, 2023, the Arbitration Court of the Voronezh Region, composed of Judge Oleg Timashov, satisfied the claim filed by AVA-Trade LLC against Arapov for the recovery of damages for his vacation trips at the expense of the company in the amount of 15,797,445 rubles. As follows from the case file, the businessman from November 25, 2014 to April 18, 2022 was the director of AVA-Trade LLC. (April 9, 2022, his powers as CEO were terminated). “During the period of his duties as director of AVA-Trade LLC, personal air travel, tourist trips and hotel accommodation for the defendant and his family members were financed from the debtor’s account in the amount of 15,797,445 rubles. 10 kopecks,” the decision of the arbitration court says. The court found that the company paid for Arapov’s accommodation in Turkish hotels D Maris Bay, Fortezza Beach Resort. At the same time, Timashov pointed out that the activities of AVA-Trade LLC are carried out in Russia and there could not be any production purposes for trips to Turkey and long-term accommodation in a hotel. The defendant did not appear at the court hearings, he did not present evidence to the contrary, such as travel sheets, reports on the expenditure of funds in the interests of the plaintiff.
At the moment, the Voronezh Arbitration Court is in the process of declaring Arapov bankrupt.
A mega-party in honor of the 30th anniversary of Yulia Buryak, the wife of Voronezh businessman Leonid Arapov (general director of Ava-Trade LLC), took place in Turkey in mid-June at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but only now became public due to the criminal case initiated by in Voronezh against high-ranking tax official Andrey Vodolazkin. He is charged with taking a bribe in the amount of 8 million rubles.
These two events do not seem to be connected in any way, but this is only at first glance.
According to the publication “Kommersant-Chernozemye”, it was the Ava-Trade company that could benefit from the transfer of money to a tax representative. Allegedly, they were intended for the postponement of a scheduled inspection.
abireg.ru, 05/22/2023, “Former deputy head of the Voronezh tax office Andrey Vodolazkin received three years in prison for fraud”: The ex-deputy head of the inter-district tax inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service No. 1 Andrei Vodolazkin was found guilty under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Fraud”) and received three years in a general regime colony. The information is published on the website of the Ramon District Court. Three years in a penal colony was also received by his subordinate Maxim Markelov, who acted as an intermediary in the transfer of money.
The criminal case was initiated by the regional Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee based on the materials of the Federal Security Service of Russia for the Voronezh Region back in 2021. According to investigators, Leonid Arapov, the ex-general director of AVA-Trade, in 2020 turned to his acquaintance with a request to find among the tax employees those who could, for a fee, transfer the field tax audit of the company from the end of 2020 to 2021. An acquaintance of the businessman turned to Mr. Merkelov, and the latter turned to Andrey Vodolazkin. The ex-deputy chief demanded 8 million rubles for his “services”.
Subsequently, the head of the enterprise transferred the money first to his friend, who gave it to Maxim Merkelov. Then the tax officer transferred the amount to Mr. Vodolazkin. Both defendants pleaded guilty. — Inset K.ru
If you rewind time a couple of years ago, you can see that Leonid Arapov’s Ava-Trade already had problems with the Federal Tax Service. It follows from the documents of the Regional Arbitration Court that the Interdistrict Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service No. 8 for the Voronezh Region conducted an audit in 2018. On February 26, an act was drawn up against Ava-Trade, and on March 29 a decision was made to charge additional taxes (20.7 million rubles), penalties (3.1 million) and a fine (1.3 million).
The court records include:
“According to the Inspectorate, the applicant’s business transactions with M-Cort LLC for the sale of aluminum scrap to the specified counterparty (this operation is not subject to VAT) and the subsequent acquisition of aluminum ingots from M-Cort LLC in an amount comparable to the volume of sold scrap (the transaction for which disputed tax deductions for VAT are claimed) are unrealistic, including due to the absence of the necessary conditions for M-Cort LLC to carry out production activities.”
To put it simply, the Federal Tax Service convicted Ava-Trade of violating tax laws. The company of Leonid Arapov tried to challenge the punishment and appealed to the Arbitration Court of the Voronezh Region, but the court sided with the tax authorities.
And this story was just remembered in the light of the criminal case against the taxman Vodolazkin, and with it the expensive party of Leonid Arapov’s wife Yulia Buryak, which was widely covered on Instagram, surfaced. Telegram channels wondered, whose money was used to arrange such a large-scale holiday?
Notebook Voronezh decided to calculate how much the celebration could cost. So, judging by the geotag in the publications of Yulia Buryak, her 30th birthday was celebrated in the five-star hotel D Maris Bay on the Datca Peninsula in southwestern Turkey.
According to booking.com, renting a double room in this hotel costs at least 100 thousand rubles per day. Junior suite – more than 200 thousand, and presidential suite – 658 thousand.
Considering that there were dozens of guests at the birthday party, and it lasted three days, the amount is already quite substantial. Plus, it should be borne in mind that we are talking not only about renting rooms, but also venues for holding a holiday.
In her Instagram, Yulia Buryak thanked the Sirius Aero airline, which has its own fleet of business jets. A flight to Turkey on it will cost about 4.5 thousand euros or 400 thousand rubles per person.
Julia’s friends were also photographed against the backdrop of VistaJet. This company does not publicly disclose its price list, but according to Forbes, an hour of using such an aircraft can cost from 12 to 20 thousand dollars.
And now the most interesting.
At the birthday party of Yulia Buryak, Russian stars of the first magnitude performed – one of the most popular people in the country.
We will focus on the open data of the international concert agency RocketBooking. All amounts are indicated in the minimum value – without taking into account the foreign coefficient and other allowances.
As leading Ksenia Sobchak (4.6 million) and Igor Vernik (1.5 million rubles) participated.
Comedy Club star Semyon Slepakov entertained guests with love poems between Leonid and Yulia (2.5 million rubles).
Dmitry Malikov (1.5 million), Leonid Agutin (3.8 million rubles), Svetlana Loboda (7.5 million), Bi-2 group (7.5 million), Grigory Leps (8 million), Valery Meladze (9.5 million).
The most expensive was Sergey Shnurov. In 2020 in TASS interview he admitted that his performance “was worth as much as it is worth” 11.5 million rubles.
The result is an amount of at least 57.9 million rubles. Approximately the good mood of Yulia Buryak’s birthday guests could have cost this much. The main thing is that they were satisfied, as evidenced by posts and stories on Instagram.
In addition, screenwriters, decorators, photographers, videographers took part in the celebration. The food and drinks were obviously not cheap either. Some smaller organizational expenses cannot be ruled out.
In general, according to the most conservative estimates, an amount close to 100 million rubles looms. At the same time, Yulia Buryak herself is a modest person. She has only 8 thousand subscribers on Instagram, there is also a youtube channel abandoned since 2019, where she recorded an interview “About Love”. She is also mentioned as the editor-in-chief of Buy magazine.
As for her husband, Voronezh businessman Leonid Arapov, his Ava-Trade company in 2020 showed a profit (according to Sbis open data) in the amount of 132.2 million rubles.
It would be appropriate to recall the poem by Semyon Slepakov, which he read from the stage at Yulia’s birthday party:
Lenya transferred the dough to my IP,
I jumped on the plane, leaving everything,
And rushed to Yulia in the crowd of other stars,
The same as going to Saint-Tropez in July,
What did you call – thank you
And for a private jet (approx. private jet),
And for the fact that there is no Solodov in the hall.