What happened is what Rucriminal.info has been talking about for a long time. The Moscow Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (OFAS) finally recognized that the Moscow government and Stanislav Nikolaev, the owner of the Mercator Holding company, whom the security services know as the “right hand” of Semen Mogilevich’s authority, bypassing sanctions, supported manufacturers from Switzerland and the UK. Billions of budget rubles, with the approval of Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and his deputy Pyotr Biryukov, went to Mercator, and then went abroad. Money was paid for allegedly Russian equipment, which in reality was made in the UK and Switzerland. But the city authorities turned a blind eye to this. But now eyes can open at law enforcement agencies.

Black "label" from FAS for Sobyanin and Mercator

According to the documents that were at the disposal of Rucriminal.info, in November 2019 the State Budgetary Institution “Roads” of the Moscow Department of Housing and Communal Services held an auction (purchase No. 0173200001419001158) for the right to conclude a state contract for the supply of road-building equipment worth 50 million rubles. According to the already debugged scheme, Mercator Holding, the main supplier of equipment for the city authorities for billions of rubles, filed an application. The FAS has already ruled on large-scale violations during auctions involving Mercator. But Sobyanin and Biryukov are not confused by anything. But Mercator is always sure of victories, therefore, did not bother and did not even submit the put copy of the examination certificate of the RF CCI that the supplier’s products did not violate the government decree of July 14, 2014 No. 656 “On the establishment of a ban on certain types of admission” "engineering goods originating from foreign countries for the purpose of procurement to meet state and municipal needs."

These are the so-called counter-sanctions, which should place the purchase of products from sanctions countries on budgetary funds. As a result, the application of Mercator was found to be inadequate to the requirements of the auction documentation, as violating the very decree No. 656. The holding of the authoritative Stanislav Nikolaev was removed from the auction.

Mercator appealed such a decision to the OFAS in Moscow, but there they recognized the complaint of Mercator Holding LLC as unfounded. Thus, both Mercator and the Moscow authorities were in a very difficult situation - it was recognized that the products supplied by the Nikolaev holding did not comply with Decree No. 656. And on the go-ahead, Sobyanin and Biryukov purchased such products for billions of rubles. At the same time, the capital's leaders, according to Rucriminal.info, knew perfectly well that they were letting budget money go around sanctions.

We will not go far for examples. Here is the story of one tender for the right to conclude a contract No. 2772765679018000077, which was held by the Moscow government to purchase special equipment for the capital’s needs in the amount of over 2 billion rubles of budget money. This amount was allocated for the purchase of units of equipment, including liquid and solid reagent dispensers, water washers and sweepers, snow loaders, etc. Initially, the specifications for the supply of equipment for the needs of the city indicated characteristics tailored to one specific supplier - Mercator.

So, in the conditions of the competition there were characteristics of the goods (points 4, 6, 8 of the technical specifications), which correspond to the goods of the sole supplier - the Mercator company (BUCHERCITYFANT 6000 - paragraph 4, HOLDERS990 - paragraph 6, KRAMERALLROAD 950 - paragraph 8).

Traditionally for Mercator, the prices stated in the initial maximum price of lots looked high. For example, sweepers in Moscow government units subordinate to Pyotr Biryukov were ready to purchase more than 12 million rubles per unit of equipment, while Russian manufacturers offer sweepers from 6.5 million rubles.

         Bidding took place in January 2018 and, as usual, the Mercator company became the winner with a minimum bid on the contract price - 2 091 945 645 rubles.

However, this time, their mutual joy and the search for new giant real estate objects were hindered by the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The FAS revealed a series of gross violations during the auction (cases No. 18/44/99/71, No. 18/44/99/33) of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the contract system in the field of procurement.

         But these are “trifles” in comparison with another violation. According to the documents held by rucriminal.info, the Federal Antimonopoly Service found that during the auction the Government of the Russian Federation No. 656 (Russian counter-sanctions) was violated. The FAS considered that Mercator Holding failed to prove that the equipment it supplied was of Russian manufacture.

As a result, the FAS issued an order to cancel the protocol for summing up the results of the tender, as well as to review the application of the Mercator procurement participant in accordance with the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the procurement contract system and to carry out further the procedure for determining the supplier.

The order was issued on January 31, 2018 and the deadline for its execution was designated 02/14/2018.

         Do you know what the Moscow government did next? But nothing. By order of Pyotr Biryukov, on February 2, 2018 (two days after the FAS order), the city authorities signed a state contract with Mercator No. 2772765679018000077 and began to transfer budget funds to companies.

 

A gift to Muscovites: English technology disguised as Russian

 

For a long time, Mercator has remained the sole supplier and constant winner of all electronic auctions held by Avtodor City Public Bank, and all communal equipment that goes onto the streets of Moscow is supplied by this Kaluga company. The company positions itself as the Mercator Kaluga manufacturing enterprise and a network of service centers. In fact, according to experts interviewed by Rucriminal.info, Mercator Holding LLC, as part of public procurement, supplies foreign equipment in the guise of localized Russian equipment. According to the official version, the production of machines is carried out at the manufacturing plant of LLC Mercator-Kaluga in the city of Kaluga. In fact, it is a localized assembly site of Bucher Industries, which it writes to shareholders in its report.

The plant in Kaluga is positioned as its own production jointly with Bucher. At the same time, the report for the Bucher shareholders indicated that CityCat 2020 is only being assembled and tested in Kaluga. Accordingly, we are not talking about metalworking or painting. In the next sentence, the plant is generally called the “assembly line”, and on the official website of Bucher, the plant in Kaluga is listed as local production in Russia.

In fact, at the plant in Kaluga, the wheels are fastened with English and Swiss equipment and put up for auction at the Moscow authorities under the guise of Russian products.

For example, Bucher CityCat 2020 (manufacturing plant of Bucher, UK) was put up for auctions by the Moscow authorities as VKM-2020 of the plant of LLC Mercator-Kaluga.

According to the interlocutors of Rucriminal.info, in the end it turns out that the state budgetary institution of Moscow, in violation of the law, purchases imported equipment from which the identification plates of import manufacturing plants were stupidly removed.

 

Billions for the mafia from Sobyanin

 

The owners of Mercator are also interesting. Officially, this is Stanislav Nikolaev, who since the late 80s has been the "right hand" of the oldest mafia boss Semen Mogilevich (Don Simeon). It is in this capacity that Nikolaev appears in the materials of the FBI and Interpol.

Stanislav Nikolaev, graduated from the Institute of Physical Education in Kiev, then entered the Tashkent Construction Institute. He worked as a foreman and head of the personnel department in various construction trusts, until fate in the mid-80s brought him to another native of the Ukrainian SSR, Semen Mogilevich. The latter by that time was already a successful businessman who had made a fortune by speculating in currency, clandestine vodka trade, exporting antiques to the West, etc. Later, these types of criminal businesses were supplemented by the supply of prostitutes, arms smuggling, racketeering, etc. Mogilevich became the financial director of a gigantic international crime syndicate, which included mafiosi from around the world. From Russia, its main participants were the leaders of the Solntsevo organized crime group. All of them knew how to shoot well, to play muscles, to threaten. And only Golovasty (another nickname of Mogilevich) was able to launder millions of "dirty" dollars and invest them in legal enterprises. Of course, he alone could not cope with such volumes of money. However, Semyon had no less big-headed helpers, among whom Stanislav Nikolaev stood out. He learned to work with black cash while still working in various Soviet building trusts.

For money laundering, Mogilevich created dozens of firms in different countries through which hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars passed. Among them, for example, were firms EM Consulting GmbH and British European Marketing Ltd. In the first company Nikolaev headed the representative office in the USSR, and in the second he was the president at all.

"British European Marketing Ltd" "lit up" in the decision of the court of Pennsylvania in the case of "USA v. Mogilevich." The documents say that the company headed by Nikolaev was registered in Cardiff (Wales) by close associates of Mogilevich and was needed to launder funds in London of another structure of Don Simeon - “UNITED TRADE”.

The main feature of the washing network of Mogilevich and Nikolaev was the use of many companies registered in different countries, but having the same name - “Arigon ltd”. The main one was the Hungarian “Arigon ltd”, in which, according to the report of the FBI “Eurasian Organized Crime Organization Semyon Mogilevich”, Stanislav Nikolaev was the president. rucriminal.info publishes copies of the pages of this report dedicated to Nikolaev.

         After international intelligence agencies, including the FBI, conducted a large-scale operation against the mafia empire of Don Simeon, Mogilevich and Nikolaev hastily returned to Russia. They did not remain idle here, in particular, the Mercator company was born, one of the co-owners of which was the leader of the Solntsevo group Sergey Mikhailov (Mikhas). This structure controls and its “face” is all the same Nikolaev. And in this frankly mafia structure, the metropolitan authorities, led by Sergei Sobyanin, pump billions of rubles.

To be continued

Timofey Grishin

Source: www.rucriminal.info