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A court has recognized the evidence gathered by the Novgorod Region investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee sufficient to convict deputy head of Novgorodavtodor, state-owned institution, Georgy Vishnyakov. He was found guilty of crimes under part 4 of article 159 of the RF Penal Code, part 1 of article 285, paragraph “c” of part 2 of article 179, paragraph “a” of part 2 of article 178, part 1 of article 286, paragraph “c” of part 5 of article 290 (fraud, abuse of office, compelling to reject a deal, barring, limitation or elimination of competition, exceeding of official powers, bribery).

According to investigators, in 2012, in Novgorod Region first deputy head of administration of the region Arnold Shalmuyev set up an organized criminal group to systematically steal the large sums of money allocated to building, repair and maintenance of motorways in Novgorod Region. The group also included cofounder of OOO Magistral Anatoly Petrov, head of Novgorodavtodor Nikolai Zakaldayev, his deputy Georgy Vishnyakov and expert Vyacheslav Samoylov, director of Veche, a state regional unitary enterprise, Oleg Orlov, his deputy Alexander Blov and a number of businessmen - Konstantin Bekchev, Alexey Tutykin, Nato Natanov. According to the plan developed by the members of the group, the enterprise controlled by them – state regional unitary enterprise Veche was to win a tender on a state contract on executing a set of works on maintaining motor ways of regional and inter-municipal importance and artificial constructions on them in the second half of 2012 in the territory of the most districts in Novgorod Region. The initial maximum price of the contract was almost 395 million rubles. According to the plan a part of that sum, no less than 50 million rubles had to go to their pockets. To implement their criminal intention Orlov and Belov were appointed director and deputy director of Veche. In addition, in May 2012, members of the criminal group purchased OOO Magistral, through which they wanted to steal the money.

Contrary to their plans in June 2012 another organization won the open electronic tender offering the minimal price. After that the CEO of the company started receiving threats of material damage and spreading information discrediting his business reputation. As the result, the businessman realizing the reality of the threats of the members of the group, who occupied top positions, had to reject the contract and it was signed with Veche, after which 22 million rubles were transferred to the settlement account of OOO Magistal under forged accounting documents.

Vishnyakov admitted his guilt and concluded a pretrial cooperation deal, under which he gave detailed evidence. For that reason the criminal case against him was severed in a separate lawsuit.

The court sentenced him to 3 years in a maximum-security penal colony banning him from taking any positions in local governments for 2 years and a fine of 1 million 320 thousand rubles.