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The Moscow Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia finished investigation of a probe into former officer of a district Rosreestr unit of Moscow, two former Moscow police officers and 15 their accomplices of no state service. Depending on the role of each they are accused of committing offenses under Parts 1, 2, 3 of Article 210 (organization of a criminal community and participation in it, including with use of official position), Part 4 of Article 159 (swindling on an especially large scale), Paragraph A, B of Part 4 of Article 174 (legalization of money or other property acquired by other persons in an illegal way, committed by a group of persons on an especially large scale), Paragraphs A, B of Part 4 of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia (legalization of money or other property acquired by a person in an illegal way, committed by a group of persons on an especially large scale).

According to the investigation, no later than February 2015, Safronov, being an employee of the department for registration of real estate rights in the North-Eastern Administrative District of the Rosreestr for the city of Moscow, Elena Sivaleva and Anastasia Shikunova created and headed a criminal community for the main purpose of commission of apartment fraud and legalization of rights for illegally acquired apartments. During over 4 years, under the auspices of the police officers of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Eastern Administrative District of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city of Moscow, the criminal community committed fraudulent actions in relation to 11 real estate objects belonging to the city.

The illegal activities were detected and suppressed as a result of joint efforts of the investigators of the Moscow Investigative Committee and officers of operational services. In 2019 Safronov was detained while taking out a body of a senior resident of one of the stolen apartments. Subsequently, it turned out that the death of a man was not of a criminal nature and was natural. After that, the rest of the members of the criminal community were detained and wrote confessions; almost all of them admitted their guilt during the investigation.

The investigators carried out a significant volume of investigative and procedural activities in Moscow and other constituent entities of the Russian Federation, including over 20 searches, identified and questioned over 70 witnesses, carried out complex forensic examinations, results of which enabled them to establish involvement of all perpetrators in the said offenses. The investigators managed to gather evidence exposing the guilt of all the accused, despite the complexity of the investigation due to the many episodes and non-obviousness of the crimes. The probe amounted to 147 volumes.

Upon the investigative motion, the court arrested the property of the perpetrators worth over 25 million rubles in order to compensate for the damage inflicted to the victims.

The investigation gathered enough evidence; therefore, the criminal case was sent to a supervisory authority for approval of the indictment and subsequent submission to the court to be tried on the merits.