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In Altai Territory, members of organized group jailed for fraud

A court has recognized the evidence collected by the Altai Territory Office of the Investigative Committee sufficient to convict members of an organized group. Depending on the role of each one, Maxim Savintsev, former managers of Doveriye, a building management company, Denis Suchkov and Alexander Krylov, as well as head of department at OAO Kuzbassenergo Sergey Vernigorov were found guilty of crimes under Part 4 of Article 159 (fraud committed by and organized group on a very large scale) and Part 4 of Article 160 of the RF Penal Code (misappropriation or embezzlement committed by an organized group on a very large scale).

The court and investigators have established that, in November 2011, Maxim Savintsev learnt that OAO Doveriye was the largest municipal building management company in the city and was worth over 30 million rubles. Implementing his criminal scheme of stealing the company’s assets he decided to buy its shares at understated price on the name of a man of straw. As a result of his frauds the suspect became an owner of 100% shares of OAO Doveriye in October 2013, causing the town of Barnaul a loss of over 19 million rubles.

In addition, from 2012 to February 2014 he with the help of CEO of OAO Doveriye Denis Suchkov, and his successor Krylov, as well as chief accountant Svetlana Bronitskaya stole the money citizens paid for the communal bills. The members of the group transferred the money to the accounts of sham firms and then cashed it. At the same time they stole the money that was transferred from consumers to the account of the facility manager as a payment for heating and hot water supply due to be transferred to OAO Kuzbassenergo (presently OAO BTSK). To do that the members of the group conspired with the employees of a resource supplying organization, falsified meter reports knowingly putting in them understated rates of heating consumption and then filed them with OAO Kuzbassenergo (OAO BTSK). As a result less money was transferred to the organization and the accused stole the difference. The total sum of damage resulted from frauds stood at about 9 million rubles.

Svetlana Bronitskaya and Lyudmila Yezhova, an employee of the resource supplying company, pleaded guilty and made a plea deal with the investigator, so the criminal cases against them were referred to court in November 2014. A court gave Bronitskaya and Yezhova suspended sentences of 4.5 and 4 years in prison respectively.

As Maxim Savintsev was hiding from investigators and did not show up for an interrogation, he was wanted since September 2014. He was detained in January 2015 in Thailand and then deported to Russia. The proceedings against him were resumed and joined with the case against other members of the organized group.

The investigators did a lot to collect and document the evidence: they questioned more than 400 witnesses, ran 17 forensic accounting inquiries, conducted a lot of searches together with the agents of the regional offices of the Federal Security Service and Interior Ministry, including in the offices and residences of high-ranking officials of the Barnaul Administration. To compensate for the damage done to the state, the investigators arrested an expensive car of one of the accused worth 900,000 rubles, more than 2 million rubles in cash confiscated from the till during a search in Doveriye building management company, and assets and property of the company worth more than 31 million rubles. There are 133 files in the case and it should be noted that all the witnesses confirmed the statements they had given before in the trial.

The court has sentenced Savintsev and Suchkov to 6 years in a minimum-security correctional facility and a fine of 500,000 rubles each. Krylov got a suspended sentence of 4.5 years and a fine of 200,000 rubles and Vernigorov a suspended sentence of 4 years and a fine of 150,000 rubles.