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The Altai Territory investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee have finished investigating a criminal case against members of an organized group headed by Maxim Savintsev. Depending on their roles, former top managers of facility managing company Doveriye Denis Suchkov and Alexander Krylov, and head of department at OAO Kuzbassenergo Sergey Vernigorov are charged with crimes under part 4 of article 159 of the RF Penal Code (fraud committed by and organized group on a very large scale – 2 counts) and part 4 of article 160 (misappropriation or embezzlement committed by an organized group on a very large scale).

According to investigators, in November 2011, Maxim Savintsev learnt that OAO Doveriye was the largest municipal building management company in the city and was worth over 30 million rubles. Implementing his criminal scheme of stealing the company’s assets he decided to buy its shares at understated price on the name of a man of straw. As a result of his frauds the suspect became an owner of 100% shares of OAO Doveriye in October 2013, causing the town of Barnaul a loss of over 19 million rubles.

In addition, from 2012 to February 2014 he with the help of CEO of OAO Doveriye Denis Suchkov, and his successor Krylov, as well as chief accountant Svetlana Bronitskaya stole the money citizens paid for the communal bills. The members of the group transferred the money to the accounts of sham firms and then cashed it. At the same time they stole the money that was transferred from consumers to the account of the facility manager as a payment for heating and hot water supply due to be transferred to OAO Kuzbassenergo (presently OAO BTSK). To do that the members of the group conspired with the employees of a resource supplying organization, falsified meter reports knowingly putting in them understated rates of heating consumption and then filed them with OAO Kuzbassenergo (OAO BTSK). As a result less money was transferred to the organization and the accused stole the difference. The total sum of damage resulted from frauds stood at about 9 million rubles.

Svetlana Bronitskaya and an employee of the resource supplying company admitted to their guilt and concluded a cooperation deal with the investigator, so the criminal cases against them were sent to court to be tried on the merits in November 2014. As Maxim Savintsev is hiding from investigators, the criminal case against him was severed in a separate proceeding and is currently suspended. In addition, he was charged with fraud and embezzlement and ruled to be placed in custody in absentia. Savintsev is internationally wanted.

Considerable and careful work has been done during the probe: investigators questioned over 400 witnesses, assigned and analyzed 17 forensic accounting expert examinations, served a lot of search warrants together with the officials of the local Office of the Federal Security Service and Main Office of the Russian Ministry of Interior, they included searches in residences and offices of high-ranking officials of Barnaul town administration.

To reimburse the damage caused to the state, the investigators have arrested an expensive car of one of the accused worth 900 thousand rubles, 2 million rubles in cash confiscated from Doveriye company during a search and the assets of the facility managing company worth over 31 million rubles.

Although Suchkov admitted to his guilt only in part, rejecting the fact of fraud while stealing the shares of the company, the investigators have gathered enough evidence so the criminal case against three of the accused with the approved indictment has been sent to court to be tried on the merits.