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In Voronezh Region, investigation finished into lawyer who organized criminal community engaged in prostitution and legalization of illegally acquired funds

The Voronezh Regional Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has finished the investigation into a lawyer and eight of his acquaintances. The lawyer is charged with crimes under Part 1 of Article 210 (creation of a criminal community), Paragraph B of Part 2 of Article 241 (organization of prostitution by other persons, as well as maintenance of brothels or regular provision of premises for prostitution, involving violence or threat of applying it), and Paragraph B of Part 4 of Article 174.1 (legalization of funds acquired by a person in an illegal way at a large scale) of the Criminal Code of Russia. Depending on their involvement, his acquaintances are charged with crimes under Part 2 of Article 210 (participation in a criminal community), and Paragraph B of Part 2 of Article 241 (organization of prostitution by other persons, as well as maintenance of brothels or regular provision of premises for prostitution, involving violence or threat of applying it) of the Criminal Code of Russia.

The investigators found that, not later than at the end of 2007, the lawyer had created a criminal community in Voronezh for organization of prostitution by other persons, as well as maintenance of brothels or regular provision of premises for prostitution, involving violence or threat of applying it, and his acquaintances had joined this community, which he had solely managed until September 2, 2015.

In September 2015, the criminal activities of the organized criminal group had been disrupted by interacting officers of regional Directorates of the Investigative Committee, Federal Security Service, and the Main Criminal Investigations Directorate of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs of Russia.

The criminal community composed of the above-mentioned persons had acted in coordination, performing single adverse actions conducted due to relations with this criminal community; its members had been fulfilling certain duties arising from its goal to gain profit from the organization of prostitution by other persons involving violence or threat of applying it.

The persons engaged in prostitution, whose will had been suppressed by threats to apply violence and who had wanted to avoid adverse consequences of using violence against them by the members of the criminal organization led by the lawyer, had had to pay money to the criminal community as a fee for their "safety" and "patronage".

For instance, the persons organizing prostitution had been regularly paying to the criminal community the sums proportionate to the proceeds received from this activity.

In the result of the above crime, the lawyer had accumulated a large amount of money exceeding 44 million rubles, which had not been distributed among the members of the community and which had been his personal income from the commitment of the crime, which had been legalized by the latter through a purchase of real estate property.

The investigators accomplished a massive amount of work to define all the circumstances of the committed crimes. A significant amount of investigative and procedural actions was carried out for the investigation of the criminal activities of the organized criminal group, namely: over 100 searches and seizures of documents of evidentiary importance; over 200 persons questioned as witnesses; a total of over 20 hours of audio and video recordings provided by officers of the Federal Security Service Voronezh Regional Directorate and the Main Criminal Investigations Directorate of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs examined; samples taken from more than 20 persons for a comparative study; 112 complex forensic examinations arranged and completed, including phonographic, video, handwriting, and other ones; items and documents seized during the preliminary investigation, including call details of the above-mentioned persons examined and resolutions for their admission to the case file as material evidence issued, based on the results of these examinations; based on the judgements the property and funds of the accused lawyer for the total amount of over 20 million rubles seized; other investigative and procedural actions completed. The case file comprises 130 volumes, the indictment consists of over 10,000 pages. The indictment was approved by the prosecutor; after filing of the indictment, the case will be sent to the court to be tried on the merits.

Operative footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqbM5gtQA2s