Currently, in St. Petersburg, they are investigating criminal cases initiated on the fact of cashing out funds in favor of a number of St. Petersburg and Moscow companies. The investigation managed to establish the names of some members of the organized criminal group and bring charges against them. Moreover, all these cases are united by several interesting facts - they are personally supervised by the head of the State Investigative Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg, Colonel Yevgeny Negrozov, who replaced General Oleg Antropov, who was tired of work. And also by the fact that, in addition to all other articles, the 210th of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of a criminal community) was also initiated.
The story is rooted in the events of 2014-2015, according to the investigators, the initiators of the criminal scheme for several years have attracted interested parties, including a number of large and well-known players in the market of customs and logistics services, to receive "black cash" under the guise of fictitious payments contracts for the supply of goods and the provision of services, including foreign trade. In addition, the members of the criminal group provided services for the collection (collection and transportation) of funds and the organization of settlements on bank accounts for a fee in the amount of about 3.5% of the amount "cashed out". As the operatives established, after the withdrawal of funds from controlled accounts, money minus the commission was transferred from hand to hand in bags right in the center of St. Petersburg.
According to a source of Rucriminal.info, the activities, which in essence refer to banking, were carried out by members of an organized criminal group through Vestak LLC and Ilya Muromets LLC, registered in 2012 and 2014 in St. Petersburg. What adds piquancy to the scheme is the fact that Vestak LLC worked in the so-called presidential bank JSB Rossiya, probably it was a guarantee of reliability and safety for the users of the scheme. The founder and general director of the Ilya Muromets society since its inception has been one and the same person, Ilya Lesukov, who owns another wholesale trade organization, Tri Bogatyrya LLC, registered at the same address in St. Petersburg.
According to the entry in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the main activity of the company is “wholesale trade in a universal assortment of goods”, which makes it possible to conclude practically any “cover” agreements. Of course, the organization had neither state registration as a credit institution, nor a license to conduct banking operations. Despite this, for almost two years of illegal activity - from January 2017 to November 2018 - the accomplices of the organized criminal group transferred cashless funds to their controlled accounts totaling almost 2 billion rubles, and the total amount of the received remuneration exceeded 60 million rubles.
But not all were identified, the detentions and arrests of the members of the criminal group led to the fact that part of the funds transferred by the clients "hung" on accounts controlled by the persons involved in the case - the losses of each company are preliminary estimated at 10 to 60 million rubles. On condition of anonymity, one of the “client” companies of Rucriminal.info said that attempts to immediately cancel erroneously sent payments and return the money that had not yet been dissolved in the air were unsuccessful: the controlling accounts of the persons evaded the fulfillment of their obligations. The source believes that these actions are deliberate and indicate attempts to "compensate for losses" by embezzling other people's money. In the end, no one was able to return the money.
In the meantime, investigators have brought charges against already established members of the criminal community under Article 172 of the Criminal Code - for organizing activities to attract funds on an especially large scale. With regard to members of the organized criminal group, each of which is a legal entity used, including for criminal purposes, measures of restraint in the form of house arrest were chosen. The procedural documents mention five community members and several accomplices who entered into a preliminary conspiracy, as well as “other unidentified persons”. It is quite possible that the list of the accused in the course of the investigation should be enlarged. “The investigation continued, the accused surrendered their accomplices. The investigation recorded something, something that they preferred not to record, since the ends led to where mere mortals did not look, ”a source told Rucriminal.info.
In the process of further investigation, the economic police conducted a series of searches on the initiated criminal case on the criminal community in the illegal banking market, searched various customs brokers, detained managers and directors, but by a strange or already natural coincidence, they bypassed businessman Andrey BodRus LLC Herzen, under the auspices of the Komissarov brothers. We are talking about the resource retired general of the Investigative Committee of Russia Igor Komissarov and his brother, a St. Petersburg lawyer, Andrei Komissarov. At one time they undertook to solve practical any questions were solved expensively, but reliably. Igor Komissarov's connections in Moscow and closeness to the head of the Investigative Committee opened up almost limitless possibilities.
April 14, 2020 a criminal case was initiated under article 210 of the Criminal Code - "Organization of a criminal community or participation in it." Andrei Herzen, despite the pandemic and border bans, has sharply disappeared to Latvia, where he has a mansion and a couple of apartments, as well as a residence permit. On the whole, he rationally decided, having been warned of future events, to wait out the storm in the European Union, drinking wine and eating jamon. On the night of May 20, the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region detained six entrepreneurs. Prior to that, operatives of the Organized Crime Department of the Economic Security Directorate of the police headquarters conducted 15 searches and delivered 12 merchants to their offices. (Note: this department was created after a change of management leadership and has not yet been noticed in corruption).
In addition to article 210 of the Criminal Code, the defendants are charged with article 172 of the Criminal Code - "Illegal banking activity", that is, cash out, and article 193 of the Criminal Code - "Evasion of obligations to repatriate funds in foreign currency or the currency of the Russian Federation" - the so-called "pasture".
Initially, the criminal case was initiated in the summer of 2019 and only for illegal banking activities, and the first wave of "implementations" took place in September. Then seven businessmen went under house arrest and a recognizance not to leave, including quite well-known specialists in this informal world - Dmitry Kuznetsov, Sergei Tsoi, Andrey Kulikov.
In the materials of the case, the percentage for cashing is indicated, it is calculated at a rate of 3%. The latter for the period 2019-2020 is at least surprising, and the maximum is unrealistic, since the current percentage for a service to business starts from 13%, but an atypical scheme was implemented here.
That is, it was not about a head-on cash flow, but about artificially inflating the costs of the enterprise in order to drastically understate the profits with which it is necessary to pay taxes. Read - virtual creation of costs for invented legal, consulting services, transportation, for example. In this genre demanded by Russian entrepreneurs, this method is called “white fence”.
Andrey Herzen met Dmitry Kuznetsov in 2014, and then the later realized idea of cooperation in the cashing market was born, since the two businessmen had the same goals and objectives - to make money, a lot and so without consequences. Andrei Herzen then sued the Baltic Customs for adjustments, and immediately converted everything that was judged into currency and took it abroad.
For example, in the middle of 2014, in the Moscow region, import and customs clearance of imported goods was carried out at a much lower cost, customs clearance was at NewWay Trading LLC TIN 7813553389 where the director and founder was Andrey Herzen's personal driver - Mr. Ivanov A.E. This event, due to the noisy design, it came to the attention of the GUBK FCS of Russia. Currently, according to these events, a criminal case has been initiated under Art. 194 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but there are no suspects and criminal case No. 29082 lies on the shelf of the Main Investigation Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Moscow Region as a capercaillie. In 2015, Andrey Herzen worked on the withdrawal of DT 10218060/231214/0017694 recipient LLC FAVORIT (Moscow) (thermoplastic machine, duty rate 0% and VAT 0%, the cost of goods fifteen million US dollars).
NewWay Trading LLC filed a lawsuit against the Baltic Customs in 2015 for the return of overpaid customs value adjustments for the period 2012-2015, the claim was won and the money was recovered from the federal treasury in favor of NewWay Trading LLC, then from the account of the company, they were transferred to Latvia to the accounts of the offshore companies of Herzen Andrey. A similar scheme was carried out for the company LLC "Chemical Expert" INN 7805611502. It was on this basis that the court, in cooperation with Motsenyuk (the Baltic customs, who resolved the issues of return) Andrey Herzen met Dmitry Kuznetsov.
According to a source of Rucriminal.info, it is known about the attempt to import the cargo “the automatic thermoplastic machine ENGEL ES330 / 80, 1989, serial. 19399 ", worth seven million seven hundred thousand EURO to DOBROGOST LLC, where Andrey Herzen himself was and is a director and founder, but something went wrong there. Then Andrey Herzen even tried to recover the cost of the machine from the Baltic customs, but the lawyers from Komissarov and Partners for some reason withdrew the claim, probably to demand more than seven million EURO from the Russian budget for a heavily tortured machine, which actually costs no more three thousand EURO, it was not by definition.
As a result, according to the situation, it just turned out that Kuznetsov did not have Igor Fedorovich Komissarov as assistants, so he was arrested, then under house arrest and is now the accused (no options), and Andrey Herzen was under the roof and sat out the first and second waves activity of investigators and found a way out to the leadership of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, came and, magically incomprehensible to anyone, became this is only a witness in a criminal case about a criminal community. He is probably currently renting out all of his clients, including shipping lines, who are engaged in sea transport, and large wholesalers and even customs brokers. Searches have already taken place at the Arivist Group of Companies, the Baltic Customs Agency, Treffi Group of Companies and many other participants in foreign economic activity. Next in line are other companies, information on which is given in the investigation by an eternal witness, but in fact a participant and one of the organizers of the criminal group is businessman Andrei Valerievich Herzen, a native of the village of Koyogoshcha, Novgorod Region.
Operatives who worked directly on May 20, 2020. with those delivered, an extremely clear vector was set: if businessmen are ready to testify against the organizers of the scheme, then they remain witnesses or, in extreme cases, their measure will not be associated with isolation. However, no one promised that the organizers and members of the criminal group can only be witnesses, even if they surrender all their accomplices. To date, out of the dozen detained, six went home, and six went to a pre-trial detention cell or to house arrest, and only one Andrei Herzen remained a witness and is sitting in Riga (Latvia).
Well, judge for yourself, if Andrei Herzen was engaged in the import of goods at a "zero rate" of duty, like Ilya Lesukov in Ilya Muromets LLC, Andrey Herzen was the director and founder of the DOBROGOST LLC importer, at inflated prices, drove out millions under his contracts and millions of dollars, including for Kuznetsov's clients (just like Kuznetsov drove out or cashed out for Herzen), if Andrei Herzen personally carried and received bags of money, gluing on top his interest "at risk" if he sold Kuznetsov currency abroad in exchange for cash in Russia and organized joint use of sites with Kuznetsov in various banks for work aimed at withdrawing money abroad, and as the closing documents were fictitious documents drawn by Andrei Herzen and his brother Eduard Herzen in offices in the offices - this is not an organization of a crime ? The Gertsenykh employees, who drew the documents, were not identified and interrogated, the servers were not seized and the laptop with the phone of the witness Andrei Herzen also did not come to the attention of the investigating authorities, all Latvian, Danish, Czech bank clients remained unnoticed. Andrei Komisarov, a lawyer, and Igor Komisarov, a former assistant to the chairman of the Investigative Committee, gave Herzen Andrei the status of a witness, he still lives in Riga, occasionally arriving for interrogation when it suits him. The entire customs and logistics community of St. Petersburg is interested in whether Colonel Evgeny Negrozov will allow this legal chaos and such a witness Andrey Herzen in a criminal case when he sends 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to court. By the way, everyone is also waiting for Colonel Yevgeny Negrozov to become a general. Corruption should not slip through in a landmark case, the organizers should not buy off criminal liability, the court will decide who is to blame and who is not. Meanwhile, in April 2021, there will be a year as the investigation of a criminal case under Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is going on, tick-tock time ...
To be continued
Timofey Grishin
