News

Pretrial agreement concluded in Moscow with an MVD investigator, who was a member of an organized group, who committed frauds and stole expensive cars

Saint-Petersburg Central Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee is investigating a criminal case against members of an organized criminal group, who stole expensive cars and committed frauds in the area of car insurance. The criminal case was initiated over signs of crimes under paragraphs “a” and “b” of part 4 of article 158 and part 4 of article 159 (theft, swindling).

According to investigators, the group acted in the period between 2002 and 2012, the damage inflicted by their actions totals to several millions of rubles. The persons charged with the crimes are Yevgeny Karpov, an investigator of the property crimes investigations department of the Saint-Petersburg Vyborgsky district Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Alexey Ponomaryov, Ashot Terteryan and Yuri Tolokonnikov. All of them under the investigators’ petition were placed in the custody.

Investigators think that Vitaly Doronin, who is presently wanted, was a leader of the criminal group. He developed a plan, according to which Ponomaryov and Karpov should have found an expensive car, bought it, registered ownership right on Ponomaryov and insured it on a maximum rate in Saint-Petersburg. After that Doronin with accomplices were to fake hijacking of the car and drive to Abkhazia. After that Ponomaryov was to have complained to law enforcement bodies about alleged hijacking of the car and to insurance company for getting insurance money. Karpov, who was a specialist in criminal cases over car hijacking was to have received this case into his proceedings and then to have suspended it.

Later they implemented this criminal scheme. In late March Ponomaryov and Karpov purchased on Ponomaryov’s name a Mercedes at 1 million 400 thousand rubles, which was registered in Saint-Petersburg. On 2 April 2012, Ponomaryov insured the car on 2 million 800 thousand rubles and gave the car keys to Doronin. In May 2012 Doronin drove the car to Abkhazia and left it there. Then ponomaryov filed the hijack of the car in 20th police department of Saint-Petersburg Vyborgsky district Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A criminal case over signs of the crime under paragraph “b” of part 4 of article 159 of the RF Criminal Code (theft) was started the same day. Immediately after that Ponomaryov appealed to insurance company and demanded 2 million 800 thousand rubles of insurance money. Karpov, using his official position took the abovementioned case into his proceedings and suspended it on 26 July 2012. However, the criminals failed to finish their fraud, as the insurance company employees learnt about their criminal actions.

At present a pretrial cooperation agreement is concluded with the investigator Karpov charged with crimes under part 1 of article 285, part 3 of article 30, part 4 of article 159 of the RF Criminal Code (abuse of official powers, attempted swindling). He undertook to give testimonies relating to 5 episodes of the crimes committed by the organized group: name all the members; give details on their roles in crimes; confirm testimonies at confrontations and in court.

This is not the first case against officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, being members of criminal groups specializing on car hijacks, being investigated in Saint-Petersburg.

Saint-Petersburg Central Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee have prosecuted 4 members of an organized criminal community led by Andrey Nikolayev, the member of which was former police operative of Saint-Petersburg Vyborgsky district Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Sergey Filipchuk, who was informing the criminal group about search and investigating operations carried out by the law enforcement agents to find the stolen cars.

Saint-Petersburg investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee are also investigating a criminal case against 3 members of an organized criminal group, including 23-year-old Naryk Matevosyan, district police operative of 19th police department of Saint-Petersburg Vyborgsky district Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to investigators, the perpetrators in April 2012 committed 4 crimes related to stealing of cars.

Investigation of all three criminal cases is to be continued.