News

Former officers of Moscow police and their accomplices guilty of swindling of apartments owned by Moscow, sentenced

The evidence gathered by the Moscow Main Investigations Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has been found sufficient by the court to sentence three former officers of Moscow police and five of their accomplices of no state service. In accordance with their actual involvement, they were found guilty of 44 episodes of offences under Part 4 of Article 159 (swindling of an especially large scale); Part 1 of Article 222 (illegal storage of ammunition); Part 6 of Article 290 (bribe-taking of an especially large scale); and Part 3 of Article 303 (falsification of evidence in a criminal case about a grave or especially grave crime) of the Criminal Code of Russia.

The investigation and the court established that, in 2011, several grave and especially grave offences had been committed by Angela Amzina, former senior major crimes investigator of the Department I of the Investigative Unit of the Moscow Main Investigations Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs; Sergey Kavun and Yevgeny Primakov, former investigators of the Investigative Unit of the Moscow Main Investigations Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs; and entrepreneurs Ilya Chizhanov, Sergey Korolev, Dmitry Dvoynykh, Anton Bordovsky, and Yury Zhovtyak. Active illegal activities had made it possible for the defendants to appropriate residential premises owned by the city of Moscow, which had been intended for citizens affected by the actions of the unfair developer CJSC Energostroykomplekt-M.

By deceiving and misleading citizens and officials of the executive authorities of the capital, as well as by abusing of their trust, the accomplices had achieved recognition for pre-found individuals as defrauded shared-construction participants. Those actions had resulted in the illegal provision of property to own by the alleged shared-construction participants from the treasury of the city of Moscow. At that, the co-perpetrators had been granted the right to manage the real estate objects.

Also, the investigation established that due to joint illegal activities in 2012 Amzina had been mediated to take a bribe in the form of illegal provision of real estate services to her worth over 40.9 million roubles, and in 2015 her accomplices Primakov, Sidoruk and Chernogorov received a bribe in the form of cash worth over 4.9 million roubles. In total, the co-perpetrators had swindled 44 apartments in Moscow worth at least 199 million roubles.

Investigators of the Investigative Committee of Russia carried out a vast amount of investigative and procedural activities in Moscow and other constituents of the Russian Federation. More than 100 witnesses were identified and questioned; more than 25 complex forensic examinations were performed, the results of which provided for establishing of the involvement of all the co-perpetrators to the offences. The investigators managed to gather evidence exposing the guilt of all the participants of the organised criminal group, despite the complexity of the investigation due to the many episodes and non-obviousness of the crimes. The criminal case comprised of 201 volumes.

Today, the court has sentenced Angela Amzina to 11 years of imprisonment in a general regime penal colony, with a fine of over 40 million roubles and deprivation of the right to occupy positions in the public service and local government bodies related to administrative and economic powers, for a period of 10 years. Primakov has been sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment; Sidoruk to 7 years of imprisonment; Chernogorov to 8.5 years of imprisonment; in a strict regime penal colony, with the fines of 20 million roubles and deprivation of the right to occupy positions in the public service and local government bodies related to administrative and economic powers, for a period of 10 to 11 years. Bordovsky has been sentenced to 5.5 years of imprisonment in a general regime penal colony. Chizhanov, Korolev and Kavun have been sentenced to 3 to 4.5 years of imprisonment, suspended.

Earlier, Dvoynykh who signed a pre-trial immunity agreement was sentenced to 4.5 years of imprisonment in a general regime penal colony.

The investigation into Zhovtyak is ongoing and to be presented separately.