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A court has recognized the evidence gathered by the Novgorod Region Directorate of the Investigative Committee sufficient to Convict First Deputy Governor of Novgorod Region Arnold Shalmuyev, Deputy CEO of Veche, a state regional unitary enterprise, Aleksandr Belov and a number of businessmen of the region. Depending on the role of each ones they were found guilty of crimes under Part 4 of Article 159 of the RF Penal Code (stealing of another’s property by deceit committed by organized group on large and very large scales), Part 2, item “c” of Article 179 (forcing to conclude or refuse concluding a deal committed by an organized group), Part 2 of Article 286 (abuse of office), Part 2, item “a” of Article 174.1 (money laundering).

According to investigators, in 2012, Shalmuyev set up an organized criminal group to regularly steal the large sums of money allocated to build, repair and maintain motorways in Novgorod Region. The group also included head of Novgorodavtodor, a state institution, Nikolai Zakaldayev, his deputy Georgy Vishnyakov and expert Vyacheslav Samoylov, director of Veche, a state regional unitary enterprise, Oleg Orlov, his deputy Alexander Belov and a number of businessmen - Konstantin Bekchev, Aleksey Tutykin, Nato Natanov. According to the plan developed by Shalmuyev, the enterprise controlled by them – state regional unitary enterprise Veche was to win a tender on a state contract on executing a set of works on maintaining motor ways of regional and inter-municipal importance and artificial constructions on them in the second half of 2012 in the most districts in Novgorod Region. The investigation revealed that to implement the plan Orlov and Belov were appointed director and deputy director of Veche. In addition, in May 2012, members of the criminal group purchased OOO Magistral, through which they wanted to steal the money. Contrary to their plans in June 2012 another organization won the open electronic tender offering the minimal price. After that the CEO of the company started receiving threats of material damage and spreading information discrediting his business reputation. As the result, the businessman realizing the reality of the threats of the members of the group, who occupied top positions, had to reject the contract and it was signed with Veche, after which over 15 million rubles were transferred to the settlement account of OOO Magistal under forged accounting documents.

The investigators have done a lot of painstaking work to collect and process the evidence. The case took almost 1 year and a half to investigate and now has more than 180 files in it, while the indictment has more than 17,000 pages. The complexity of the investigation was due to many counts, a large number of the accused and their lawyers. In order to ensure that the damage was repaired, the investigators arrested property of the accused worth a total about 170 million rubles, including their flats, houses and cars.

The court has sentenced Shalmuyev to 8 years 10 months in a minimum-security penal colony and a fine of 900 thousand rubles and banned him from taking any positions on state service or in local government for 2 years 10 months, Belov to 4 years 6 months in prison, Tutykin to 5 years, Natanov to 4 years and Petrov to 6 years.

The evidence collected by the Novgorod Region Directorate of the Investigative Committee had become the bases for the sentence that was pronounced earlier to three more members of this criminal group. Oleg Orlov and Georgy Vishnyakov got 2 years 10 months and 3 years in a minimum-security penal colony respectively, and Vyacheslav Samoylov 3 years 8 months of probation.