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The Volgograd Regional Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia finished investigation of a probe into organizers and participants of a criminal community. Depending on the role of each they are charged with committing offenses under Parts 1,2 of Article 210 (organization of a criminal community and participation in it), Part 4 of Article 159 (swindling committed on an especially large scale by an organized group), Part 4 of Article 159.5 (insurance swindling committed on an especially large scale by an organized group), Paragraph A of Part 4 of Article 174.1 (legalization of funds acquired in an illegal way, committed by an organized group), Part 1 of Article 303 (falsification of evidence under civil claims) and Part 1 of Article 327 of the Criminal Code of Russia (forgery of official documents).

Charges under this probe are pressed against five persons including three former deputies of Volgograd Municipal Duma. According to investigation, they were the ones to organize and subsequently lead the criminal community, extracting colossal profits from the criminal business. To remind, the perpetrators, through controlled persons, issued or bought from car fraudsters fictitious notifications of road accidents, the so-called "Europrotocols", which do not require the participation of police officers. In the future, in order not to show the "damaged" cars to insurance for inspection, they independently appointed expensive expert studies in affiliated organizations, which, moreover, overestimated the cost of refurbishing of the vehicles. The required package of documents was attached to the statements of claim, the defendants of which were insurance companies. “Special” lawyers took part in the courts, and, despite a fixed salary, additionally estimated their services at several tens of thousands of rubles, collecting this money in court from the same insurance companies.

The damage from the illegal activities accounted for approximately 84 million rubles. As interim measures, the investigators arrested the expensive property of the accused, including: land plots, non-residential premises, industrial buildings, vehicles and even a power supply line, the cost of which is estimated at about 58 million rubles.

The evidence base in the criminal case amounted to almost 2000 volumes, and it took the accused and their defenders almost three years to study it, clearly abusing their legal right and dragging out the procedural time frames. The court agreed with the position of the investigation, limiting the members of the criminal community and giving them time to study the materials until March 1, 2021. Today the investigators issued a resolution to stop familiarizing the accused and their defenders with the materials of the criminal case.

In the nearest future the investigative materials with an approved indictment will be sent to the Prosecutor's office. 

It should be noted that, as part of the investigation of this criminal case, almost 550 more cases were processed separately and sent to court, including those against emergency commissioners, individual entrepreneurs providing services for conducting fictitious technical examinations, as well as other active members of the criminal community. Their consideration ended with the imposition of convictions or the termination of the prosecution on non-rehabilitating grounds - in connection with the reconciliation of the parties.

The last member of the group, an associate of the accused in the deputy corps, continues to get acquainted with the criminal case. Investigative materials into him were processed separately due to the fact that he had been on the wanted list for over three years. Last year the ex-deputy was detained in the Kingdom of Sweden.