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The evidence collected by the Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia was found by court to be sufficient to sentence former  head of Serpukhovsky District of Moscow Region Alexander Shestun. He was found guilty of committing offenses under Part 4 of Article 159, Paragraph B of Part 4 of Article 174.1, Article 289, Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of Russia (swindling; legalization of amounts of money acquired by a person as the result of the committed offense; illegal business activity; bribe-taking on an especially large scale).

According to the investigation, in 2003-2018, Shestun, holding the designated position, had created and managed through proxies 43 commercial organizations. The income acquired from those activities he had used to buy under-priced municipal land plots.

From 2008 to 2011, Shestun jointly with Krivodubsky and Samsonov had illegally acquired ownership rights for four land lots located in Borisovo village of Dankovskoe rural settlement of Serpukhovsky Municipal District of Moscow Region, with an area of 10 hectares, causing the damage to the budget on a very large scale in the amount of over 64.5 million rubles. For this purpose, they used Center LLC affiliated with them. The criminal scheme had consisted of an initial lease of the land to the legal entity with subsequent construction of a small household building on this land. Following the registration of ownership, the land had been resold.

For instance, in 2011-2014, through a number of transactions via Center LLC, Morgan LLC, and ITV-Service LLC affiliated with them, they had legalized at a large scale the illegally acquired property, such as land lots located in Borisovo village of Dankovskoe rural settlement of Serpukhovsky Municipal District of Moscow Region, selling them to a large industrial company for 160 million rubles. Originally they had purchased the land only for 628 rubles.

During the investigation, the evidence was found that Shestun, Krivodubsky, and Samsonov had actually owned the property for the amount of around 3.2 billion rubles (at cadastral value) registered both on them and their family members, relatives, affiliated legal entities and individuals. In that, some of them had not been aware of the number of real estate assets registered in their names.

The evidence collected by investigation provided a basis for claims filed by the General Prosecutor's office and granted by courts, therefore, the property was returned to state.

Apart from that, in 2010-2011, Shestun, using his official powers for mercenary purposes, organized and carried out, by means of the local Administration, an informal assessment of financial and economic activities of an autonomous non-commercial organization engaged in development of physical education and sports in order to estimate allocations and expenditures. Having obtained the requested information, the accused had offered the actual head of this organization general patronage and condoning through ranks for a cash reward. From 2012 to 2018, the said representative had been mediating to Shestun bribes of the total value of 9.4 million rubles and purchased sports equipment worth over 500 thousand rubles for Shestun's recreation resort. Thus, the total sum of the bribe had exceeded 9,9 million rubles.

The investigation of the criminal case was of particular complexity due to the continuous nature of the crimes committed, the need for labor-intensive forensic examinations, including handwriting, land management; establishing the whereabouts and interrogation of a significant number of persons - 215 witnesses. Thus, the criminal case amounted to 176 volumes.

After evaluation of evidence, the Podolsk City Court sentenced Alexander Shestun to 15 years of imprisonment in a strict regime penal colony with a ban to hold administrative positions for 8 years and a fine of 49 million rubles.

Other perpetrators - Boris Krivodubsky and Sergey Samsonov - were put on international wanted list.

Apart from that, the Odintsovo City Court of Moscow Region imposed a sentence over Sergey Ilyukhin who was found guilty of falsification of evidence for a probe into seizing of property from former head of Serpukhovsky District of Moscow Region Alexander Shestun (Part 1 of Article 303 of the Criminal Code of Russia) and sentenced him to a fine.

It was established that in March 2008 Ilyukhin sold two land plots in Krasnogorsky District of Moscow Region for 1.9 million rubles. Later, together with Shestun, he was a co-defendant in the civil case processed by Odintsovo City Court upon a claim of the Prosecutor General's Office for the conversion of property received in violation of anti-corruption legislation into state revenue. The assessment carried out by the Prosecutor General's Office revealed 48 real estate objects worth 29 million rubles that were registered in Ilyukhin's name. To create the appearance that he had the necessary funds and sufficient sources of income for the acquisition of the specified property, the defendant made fake sales agreements for the land plots, increasing the amount of funds received by him from 1.9 to 29 million rubles. Ilyukhin, through his representative, presented the falsified materials to the court as evidence in a civil case.

Official spokesperson for the Investigative Committee of Russia S. Petrenko