No sooner had the scandal with the arrests of high-ranking employees of the Investigative Committee died down than new shocks occurred in the country's security bloc: employees of the FSB's Internal Security Directorate (USB) came to search the head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) Andrei Belyaninov. Investigators visited him, as well as his two deputies - Ruslan Davydov and Andrei Strukov - and businessman Sergei Lobanov, who is close to the Federal Customs Service, as part of an investigation into a criminal case of alcohol smuggling.
The operation, prepared, according to our data, just one night before the start of the searches, ended in the best traditions of documentaries of the 90s: with video footage of the luxurious general’s palace, with photographs of cash laid out on the table, with the “wallet businessman” who left the country (to whom you have to decide whether to return to your homeland or wait to be put on the international wanted list). Nothing changes except the props: instead of Xerox boxes full of money, shoe boxes appear.
As a result of the scandal, the head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov was dismissed by order of Dmitry Medvedev - he will be replaced by the presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District Sergei Bulavin.
What information led the FSB to the customs management, who gave what testimony against Andrei Belyaninov, what new smuggling schemes were revealed during the searches - in the Novaya Gazeta investigation.
Sad holiday
On July 14, Andrei Belyaninov celebrated his 59th birthday. The closest people were invited to the festive dinner at the Baku Yard restaurant on Rusakovskaya Street: relatives, colleagues, classmates. Throughout the evening, guests raised glasses to the health of the birthday boy, recalled his failed career as an actor (as a child, Belyaninov starred in the film “Children of Don Quixote”), and shared funny stories.
Andrei Belyaninov, his friends say, is an official atypical for modern Russia: very open, sarcastic. Many acquaintances call Belyaninov perhaps the most sincere person in the federal executive authorities.
“He was like that in his youth too - a joker, a rake. Sometimes it seems that in front of you is an adult child - naive, sometimes with some completely teenage ideas. Once we were walking down the street, so he saw a group of some brawlers and offered to fight with them “You take on those, I’m these!” they explain to him: “Andrey, calm down. You are healthy, but we are not. And if we win, how will the police officers feel when they check your documents at the police station? “Thank God, they talked you out of it,” a businessman who knows Belyaninov recalls with a laugh.
Another acquaintance, a federal official, also notes Belyaninov’s easy, sometimes turning into frivolous, attitude towards life: “A person holding the post of head of a department that is responsible for 55% of the budget’s revenue seems to have to be different - constantly on edge, like a soldier on "But Yurich, on the contrary, is calm and relaxed."
Another of Belyaninov’s comrades tells how he avoids in every possible way the personal security assigned to him: “He loves to drive himself. There is an insert on the windshield “without the right of inspection” - and it’s enough so that they won’t be bothered. Of course, he loves himself, but the pleasure comes from He definitely doesn’t feel a servile attitude towards himself.”
A State Duma deputy who knows Belyaninov “at a distance” sees completely different qualities in him - excessive emotionality, sometimes turning into rudeness, complete disrespect for others, including colleagues in the security bloc.
“Once employees of the Investigative Committee conducted searches in the offices of ordinary employees of the Federal Customs Service. The next day, Andrei Yuryevich came to Bastrykin - and literally from the doorway: “You, Alexander Ivanovich, where are you going?” I have my own special service! You have something to present, so present it, but don’t interfere with our work,” the deputy recalls. According to his interlocutor, Belyaninov allowed himself to do the same in relation to the former head of Directorate “K” of the SEB FSB Viktor Voronin, whose subordinates repeatedly clashed with employees of the Main Directorate for Combating Smuggling (GUBK) of the Federal Customs Service. “At the same time, when Voronin started having problems, Belyaninov said: “This is my friend. We are quarreling, but I support him.” It was unexpected,” the deputy adds.
“I wish you, Andrey Yuryevich, Siberian health, Caucasian longevity and St. Petersburg happiness,” one of the guests raised a toast to the birthday boy to the general laughter.
St. Petersburg's happiness did not happen: two weeks later, in the offices of the head of the Federal Customs Service, as well as his two deputies - Ruslan Davydov (supervises the law enforcement unit in the service) and Andrei Strukov (deputy chairman of the Federal Customs Service, supervises North-West Technical University) - the FSB's Internal Security Department (USB) conducted searches as part of a criminal case initiated by the Main Investigation Department (GID) of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the spring of this year on the fact of smuggling of alcoholic products (Article 200.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Having seized documents from the customs authorities’ workplaces, FSB operatives went to two country estates of Andrei Belyaninov, located in the village of Konakovo in the Tver Region and the village of Bachurino in New Moscow.
In the latter, in addition to the luxurious interiors traditional for Russian senior civil servants, the investigative team discovered a large sum of money: the total amount at today’s exchange rate is 66 million rubles. Later, Andrei Belyaninov, who with his own hands in his home tracksuit was taking out shoe boxes filled with cash from the mezzanine, will explain that this money is “family savings.”
After carrying out the necessary investigative actions at the residential addresses, Belyaninov, accompanied by employees of the FSB Internal Security Service, was taken for interrogation to the Investigative Committee, in Tekhnichesky Lane, where he once came to argue with Bastrykin.
The head of the Federal Customs Service was released, according to his friends, after midnight - in the status of a witness.
Case of Courvoisier
A criminal case regarding the smuggling of alcoholic beverages was initiated on March 29, 2016. The reason was the materials of the FSB Internal Security Service officers, who discovered in the Ust-Luga port of St. Petersburg the illegal import of a batch of elite Courvoisier cognac from 1912 from the port of Hamburg under the guise of construction sealant. Subsequently, this cognac was supposed to replenish the bar list of the Buddha-Bar restaurant owned by the famous St. Petersburg businessman Mikhalchenko (now under arrest).
The damage suffered by the Russian budget from the submission of a fictitious customs declaration, which allowed the criminals to underestimate the amount of customs duties, as the investigation estimates, hardly exceeded 1.8 million rubles. But despite the insignificant amount of damage, in early April, operatives of the FSB Internal Security Service detained four people on suspicion of smuggling alcoholic beverages: deputy general director of Contrail Logistics North-West LLC Anatoly Kindzersky, general director of South-Eastern Trading Company LLC Ilya Pichko, chief security service of the holding company "Forum" Boris Korevsky and - from the second time - the owner of the latter, influential St. Petersburg businessman Dmitry Mikhalchenko.
All four were placed in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. According to an FSB officer familiar with the details of this criminal case, CSS operatives have been investigating Mikhalchenko since 2015 (on September 25, the Moscow City Court authorized wiretapping of the businessman’s phones), but only in the case of Courvoisier cognac did they receive “irrefutable evidence of his participation in smuggling.”
“The damage may seem small, but the main thing is the documented fact of participation in these processes. Where there is cognac, there are also large quantities of clothing and electronics. This remains to be verified. And as for “alcohol,” the investigation has been strengthened by a good evidence base - there are good wiretapping results There were also secret audio recordings of the object - to understand its plans,” says the FSB officer.
The hunt for Dmitry Mikhalchenko was not accidental - this businessman, who controlled the lion's share of import flows through the North-West Customs Administration, was considered a person from the inner circle of the former head of the FSO, Evgeny Murov, who left his post at the end of May this year.
Murov, in turn, emphasizes several unrelated sources in law enforcement agencies, maintained friendly relations with the already mentioned FSB general Voronin, former deputy chairman of the Investigative Committee Vasily Piskarev (his powers were terminated by presidential decree in early May) and, finally, for the time being the current head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov.
:The smuggling of Courvoisier cognac, according to an FSB officer, was carried out as follows: in early spring, Dmitry Mikhalchenko allegedly instructed his subordinate Boris Korevsky to find a company that would import alcohol for the needs of his restaurant with minimal monetary costs at the border.
Korevsky allegedly approached ULS-Global co-owner Igor Khavronov with this proposal, but he refused - their group imports expensive clothing, but not alcohol. (ULS-Global is a network of enterprises with a fleet of 350 trucks, an aircraft fleet of 8 Airbus A300-B4 and A310-300F cargo planes and its own ferry Ferry 1.)
Last month, Novaya Gazeta wrote about this structure and its relationships with other participants in the transportation market (see No. 65 of June 20, 2016 - “Smuggling Stars”). Then, let me remind you, we provided excerpts from the letters we received from road carrier Dmitry Zarubin, who is in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center on charges of evading customs duties (Article 194 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and creating an organized criminal group (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Zarubin, in particular, noted that several influence groups allegedly operated in the commodity smuggling market in the NWTU zone - in addition to ULS-Global, these were allegedly: Dmitry Mikhalchenko, an official of the St. Petersburg department of Rosreestr Boris Avakyan and Contrail Logistics North-West LLC.
The representative of the latter, businessman Anatoly Kindzersky, as a result, according to operatives, took on the task of transporting cognac for Dmitry Mikhalchenko.
An FSB employee familiar with the details of the criminal case notes: Kindzersky and Dmitry Mikhalchenko were allegedly two independent players in the “commodity smuggling” market, although both had the status of “untouchables” (as Dmitry Zarubin called them in his letters).
Kindzersky, like Mikhalchenko, had strong support from the leadership of the Federal Customs Service. “In September 2015, three operatives of the GUBK FCS - Dergachev, Muravyov and Starostin - began developing Kindzersky for several shipments at the Baltic customs. After this was reported to management, the development was curtailed, and the operatives were fired within one day,” gives an example FSB operative.
According to him, Kindzersky at that time had not only useful business connections, but also family connections - his uncle allegedly worked as an adviser to Rosneft President Igor Sechin and even turned to him for help when his nephew was detained. But Sechin showed integrity: immediately after the initiation of a criminal case, his uncle was fired from Rosneft, the FSB employee concludes.
Plea deal
At the beginning of summer, Anatoly Kindzersky entered into a pre-trial agreement with the investigation. He became the first and so far the only defendant in the case who agreed to cooperate (Dmitry Mikhalchenko does not give any testimony at all). According to our sources in the FSB, it was thanks to Kindzersky’s testimony that the operational investigative group received grounds for conducting recent searches at the Federal Customs Service.
“Kindzersky showed not only the circumstances of the import of cognac for Mikhalchenko, but also agreed to expose the people who patronized him,” says the FSB officer. What did the deputy director of Contrail say that could put the entire head of the special service at risk?
In accordance with the testimony of Anatoly Kindzersky, referred to by an FSB employee, Contrail was able to enlist the support of the leadership of the FCS thanks to the founder of Translogistic LLC Sergei Bausov: “Bausov is a person from the close circle of Andrei Belyaninov. He was even hired into the Union of Customs Service Veterans, although he never served in the Federal Customs Service. All so that his contacts with the leadership of the Federal Customs Service did not arouse suspicion. Bausov served as a “liaison officer” between Kindzersky and the head of the Federal Customs Service, for which he regularly received a salary.”
Bausov, according to the interlocutor, during interrogation at the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee on Tuesday evening, spoke about how and for what purposes he introduced Kindzersky to Belyaninov.
Another “emissary” of the head of the Federal Customs Service, with whom Anatoly Kindzersky, according to testimony, had to communicate, is businessman Sergei Lobanov.
Lobanov, according to an FSB officer, can be considered the closest person to Andrei Belyaninov: “In his testimony, Kindzersky admitted that Lobanov was allegedly introduced to him as a person responsible for delicate work - ensuring schemes for the import and export of goods and carrying out mutual settlements.”
Unlike Sergei Bausov, the operatives were unable to find Sergei Lobanov at home or at work - on Tuesday morning he was supposed to return to Moscow from Lithuania, but for some reason he was delayed.
Lobanov
Sergei Lobanov is only 33 years old, but he can be considered a fully established businessman: he runs a large insurance company and also owns shares in commercial banks in Russia and Moldova.
Lobanov, according to an entrepreneur familiar with him, should owe his triumphant ascent to his father, a former KGB officer of the USSR, who served together with the future head of the Federal Customs Service in the same station in the GDR.
At the end of 2011, Sergei Lobanov first appeared among the founders of the Arsenal insurance company, which two years later became the official insurer of cargo carriers from the Federal Customs Service.
According to the deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, Dmitry Gorovtsov, one of Andrei Belyaninov’s most consistent and harsh critics, “with one order, an entire segment of the road transportation market was intercepted.” “I have repeatedly drawn the attention of law enforcement and control agencies to this blatant fact: FSB, Investigative Committee, FAS: Last time, in April of this year, at a reception with the Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, I once again focused on the fact that people associated with the FCS unjustly enrich themselves. Where does this money go? To which banks? I hope the investigation will answer these questions,” says Gorovtsov.
However, the interests of Sergei Lobanov are not limited to insurance of cargo carriers, as noted by the official representative of the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin, the young businessman “owns at least 15 companies.” But the entrepreneur’s most important assets are stakes in the Russian Nefteprombank and the Moldavian Victoria Bank.
Structures associated with Lobanov acquired 40% of the shares in Victoria from the companies of the Moldovan banker Vyacheslav Platon. The deal was mediated, according to an entrepreneur familiar with Lobanov, by another Moldovan businessman, Ilan Shor, the largest owner of the Duty Free store chain in his country.
Both Platon and Shor are today under investigation in the Chisinau pre-trial detention center - both are suspected of economic crimes.
“Sergei had only one deal with Platon, but Shor can be considered his full-fledged business partner in Moldova,” says Lobanov’s acquaintance.
Shor and Lobanov, it must be said, could become partners in Russia - last year they wanted to lease land plots adjacent to international automobile checkpoints to build 45 Duty Free stores on them. Andrei Belyaninov came up with the idea of allocating these plots and transferring them to commercial companies, but this initiative did not find support in the government.
Ilan Shor allegedly knows Belyaninov himself, says an acquaintance of the latter. According to him, they were allegedly introduced by Kozhin (former head of the Presidential Administration - A.S.). Shor ensured the centralization of the supply of Moldovan fruits and vegetables through Lobanov's channels."
“Shor is the key to Lobanov’s money located in Moldova,” adds the FSB officer, but suggests not rushing to find it: “Now it is important to understand what mechanisms allow unscrupulous carriers to deceive the Russian budget.”
According to him, in addition to the well-known schemes for illegal declaration of goods (when goods with a high customs duty are transported under the guise of goods with a low customs duty), the so-called “express delivery”, introduced by order of Andrei Belyaninov in November 2014, has recently become a very popular direction.
Its essence is this:
individual companies were granted by the Federal Customs Service exclusive rights to duty-free import of consumer goods ordered by Russian citizens in foreign online stores. In the case of such imports, customs declarations are not filled out, and the only document submitted to the customs authority is the register of customers of the goods.
According to sources from the FSB, after the introduction of this innovation, part of the smuggling flows moved specifically to “express delivery”: “Suppose there is a company that has received from the FCS the right to duty-free import of goods. You enter into an agreement with a conditional Italian freight forwarder, which has an agreement ( or maybe not) with some Italian online store. Bayer (buyer - A.S.) of the boutique purchases a commercial batch of clothes weighing 5 thousand kg for a Russian store, but the formal recipient of these clothes in Sheremetyevo is the company that has received the authority. from the Federal Customs Service. Here you don’t even have to risk making false declarations - simply a register of customers is transferred to the customs authority (this is a table in which random names can be indicated, without passport data, without signatures, based on 20-30 kg of clothes per person). ) and this is how the goods are cleared through customs."
According to the interlocutor, the cost of “express delivery” services for a shipment of goods weighing 5 thousand kg is 90 thousand euros. “And this money can only be received by those whom the leadership of the Federal Customs Service has granted the right to such transportation,” he says.
This topic may also be raised within the framework of the current case of smuggling of alcoholic beverages, says an FSB officer, since in the office of Sergei Lobanov’s Arsenal insurance company, CSS operatives seized an “unofficial report” of one of these carriers - Tamarix Logistics LLC (June 2 2015 Belyaninov included this company among other organizations that have the right to engage in “express delivery”)
Resignation
Immediately after the searches at the Federal Customs Service, reports appeared in the media about the impending resignation of the head of the department, Andrei Belyaninov. Soon, the head of the legal department of the Federal Customs Service, Larisa Cherkesova, denied this information. According to our data, the high-ranking customs officer himself had no intention of resigning - he was not embarrassed by either suspicions (even if they did not result in the corresponding investigative decisions) about the participation of the FCS leadership in smuggling, or provocative photographs of millions of “family savings” hidden in boxes from shoes However, on the morning of July 28, Dmitry Medvedev ordered Belyaninov to resign, appointing Sergei Bulavin, the presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District, to the post of head of the Federal Customs Service.
According to a federal official familiar to us, once at an interdepartmental meeting, attended by generals from Directorate “K” of the FSB, the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office,
Andrei Belyaninov, responding to a colleague’s sarcastic remark about the recipe for “longevity” (he has headed the Federal Customs Service for more than 10 years), allegedly threw up his hands: “I’m like that traffic cop who doesn’t raise his baton - I don’t stop anyone from violating. If I did, I’d be working.” for so long?"
It seems that the customs general did not pay attention to the fact that many of those whom he “did not interfere” themselves lost their posts or went to pre-trial detention centers.
Corruption schemes do not stop in Russian customs. The presidential administration is deciding on the resignation of the head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov
Customs documents from the ULS Global company have become publicly available, illustrating the schemes by which illegal goods are imported into the country. As it turned out, not only customs officers, but also high-ranking FSB officers are protecting smuggling.
It should be noted that at the beginning of July, the Kremlin replaced the head of one of the key departments, the Economic Security Service (SES). Yuri Yakovlev was sent into retirement. His place was taken by Sergei Korolev, who previously headed the Department of Internal Security. Major General Viktor Voronin, who headed the “K” department (fight against smuggling), also left his post.
The reason for Voronin's resignation was a criminal case in which his subordinate Vadim Uvarov was involved. Along with these data, information appeared about cases of “protection protection” for transport and logistics companies in the North-West region, including smugglers.
Thus, the transport and logistics company ULS Global, with which Uvarov was allegedly associated, annually imported goods worth $2 billion. This means potential payments to the budget should have been $600-750 million!
Here it is worth noting the words of Vladimir Putin, who several years ago dispersed the entire customs management, putting Andrei Belyaninov in charge. "So what? And the channels worked and are still working. There are still goods worth more than $2 billion in one of the markets. They haven’t been destroyed yet, and there are no owners,” the politician said then.
Experts note that the volume of smuggled supplies of light industry goods to Russia alone in 2015 could amount to 0.5-1 trillion rubles. The resignations seem to have done nothing. The administration is preparing for a full-scale rotation of the Federal Customs Service.
"Trace of Belyaninov"
Let us recall that in May of this year, security forces raided the office of Russia’s largest wine importer, Mistral-Alko. Several law enforcement agencies, including the Investigative Committee, the FSB and the Moscow Interregional Investigation Department for Transport (MMSUT), began checking Mistral-alco.
People familiar with the situation say that the operational investigative measures were carried out as part of a criminal case regarding the receipt of bribes by employees of the Central Excise Customs.
The security forces suspect the chief customs inspector of the Central Excise Customs, Ivanna Esipovskaya, as well as several former and current employees of the department, of receiving large bribes.
The Investigative Committee stated that customs officers “received money both directly from participants in foreign trade activities and through intermediaries to speed up the process of issuing excise stamps in the interests of commercial organizations through administrative influence on subordinates.”
Then rumors appeared that the customs service under the leadership of Andrei Belyaninov could be dissolved. The powers of the FCS will be transferred to the FSB and the tax department. It seems that the security forces want to speed up this process.
In September 2015, a number of anonymous sources in the Kremlin said that control over the flow of funds from customs activities into the federal budget would be transferred to the tax service. The FSB will take over customs control.
The upcoming reform is explained by the inefficiency of the department under the leadership of Belyaninov and the desire to reduce costs for civil servants. True, it now turns out that the FCS has curators from the FSB, so the purges could be much larger.
Let us remind you that Vladimir Putin previously instructed the government to reduce the structure of control and supervisory authorities, then the prime minister gave the corresponding instructions to the departments.
Scam of the century from the Federal Customs Service?
In 2015, Belyaninov’s subordinates were able to transfer financial flows from FSUE ROSTEC to themselves. The Federal State Unitary Enterprise, through its subsidiaries, owned terminals and temporary storage warehouses (TSW) throughout the country. ROSTEC occupied at least 20-30% of turnover in the Russian foreign economic activity market.
In December 2013, Vladimir Putin signed a law prohibiting the entrepreneurial activities of FSUE ROSTEC. But it seems that customs officers simply ignored the law.
Inefficiency
The Accounts Chamber found out in 2015 that the Federal Customs Service constantly loses in courts and ineffectively collects fines. Anti-corruption fighters believe that the reason is the “rollback system” formed under the leadership of Andrei Belyaninov.
Since 2013, the number of claims against the Federal Customs Service has increased 3.2 times, from 270 to 1,776 in 2014. Customs officials managed to win only 62% of cases last year. The Federal Customs Service carried out more than 14,000 inspections and assessed an additional 15.9 billion rubles, but the Federal Customs Service was only able to recover 7.4 billion!
The desk checks of the Federal Customs Service are also being delayed. According to the law, inspections should last no more than two months, minus the time spent receiving requests. But some audits take several years!
Thus, in the case against Iceberg LLC, the inspection took place from February 2011 to 2014. Or Skintrans LLC from 2013 to 2014. Market participants say these checks are a form of blackmail and extortion.
Rollback order 280?
This year, the Federal Customs Service issued Order No. 280 for official use. According to the document, not a single imported product will be released into free circulation if its declared price turns out to be suspiciously low and does not comply with the customs risk management system (RMS).
The system belongs to the Federal Customs Service, and it was developed for the service. This means that customs officers can label almost any product with the phrase “suspiciously low price.”
In addition to the expected rise in prices of goods in March of this year by 5-7%, since last week large quantities of foreign products have been massively delayed for inspections and price adjustments!
Almost all domestic importers are confident that the applied risk management mechanism and the resulting price adjustments are not legal methods: they create barriers to trade and contradict WTO principles.
“According to international regulations on customs valuation of goods, this procedure should be based only on the declared value,” says Vyacheslav Evseev, director of the Center for the Study of Issues of Customs Tariff and Non-Tariff Regulation.
The head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov plans to increase the volume of fiscal fees to the budget. The problem is that the money simply does not always reach the budget.
Belyaninov
There are many dubious stories around Belyaninov. Thus, he is associated with the activities of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "ROSTEK". Structures associated with the wife of the head of the Federal Customs Service, Lyudmila Belyaninova, own 14% of ROSTEK-Stroy CJSC, created in 2010. The co-owner of 51% of this company is the structure of FSUE ROSTEC.
Mrs. Belyaninova owns the Belye Rosy company, specializing in real estate transactions. In addition, she is a co-owner (40%) of the Garantstroynedvizhimost company.
And “Garantstroynedvizhimost” is the customer of the cottage village “Ruzskie Dachi”, located on 144 hectares near the village of Brazhnikovo on the banks of the Ruza, 100 km from the Moscow Ring Road. The cost of one hundred square meters of land in the village is estimated at 45,000 rubles.
In 2014, the public was surprised by the unexpectedly lenient punishment that prosecutors requested for the adviser to the head of FSUE ROSTEC, Alexander Romanov, a state monopolist in the market of brokerage services at customs. The official was accused of organizing commercial bribery and money laundering. There were rumors that the head of the Federal Customs Service of Russia, Andrei Belyaninov, was behind such a lenient sentence.
The state prosecution demanded that Mr. Romanov be found guilty of organizing commercial bribery, but strangely abandoned the charge of “legalization of funds obtained by criminal means.”
Instead of the threat to Romanov, Part 4 of Art. 204 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for a very serious punishment - up to 12 years of imprisonment, state prosecutors requested five probationary colonies for the adviser with a fine of 2 million rubles and a ban on holding leadership positions in the civil service for three years. Let us note that the defendant categorically did not admit his guilt. And the defense insisted on the client’s complete acquittal, arguing that he was framed by employees of the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption (GUEBiPK) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who were themselves under investigation.
Romanov became involved in a criminal case in the summer of 2012, when he was targeted by employees of the GUEBiPK and the Investigative Committee. According to the investigation, Alexander Romanov, being a very influential person in the ROSTEC system, made every effort to ensure that Boris Ryzhkov was appointed director of the Bryansk branch.
Soon, the head of the ROSTEC division and his deputy, in addition to concluding official contracts, established a side shadow business. Cargo owners, in addition to the usual payments, had to pay for unhindered and expedited clearance - $50 per vehicle. Some went to Moscow directly to Alexander Romanov. According to the police, in total, in this way, the adviser to the head of ROSTEC received, according to the most conservative estimates, more than 20 million rubles, of which he invested more than 9 million in the construction of a temporary storage warehouse located near the ROSTEC branch in the Bryansk region and registered in the name of a figurehead.
Mr. Romanov was in custody for quite a long time, but then was released under house arrest, under which he is still under arrest. An important role in his release was played by the appeal of the head of the Federal Customs Service of Russia Andrei Belyaninov, who vouched for the accused.
It should be noted that the adviser to the head of ROSTEC, a former intelligence officer, had many other influential acquaintances. In particular, the head of one of the airports spoke in court and explained that he personally gave money for the temporary storage warehouse to Romanov, and these funds do not have a criminal origin. Because of this, the charge of money laundering was subsequently dropped.
Thieves' vertical
In April 2014, information appeared in the media that a criminal case had been opened against the head of Bryansk customs, Raimondas Petrovas, and two of his subordinates. Petrovas, as well as Deputy for Logistics Dmitry Panov and Head of the Operation and Repair Department of Customs Infrastructure Facilities Dmitry Kalachev were suspected of abuse of authority.
At the same time, the Investigative Committee for the Chelyabinsk Region completed the case of the former head of the Ural branch of the Federal State Institution “Rosgranstroy” Boris Dudka. During the period 2012-2014, the employee received bribes in the amount of more than 3.5 million rubles for signing documents on the performance of work by commercial organizations. A number of independent experts believe that Mr. Dudka is a person close to the head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov.
In July 2015, the Basmanny District Court sentenced Ruslan Lagutkin, deputy head of the information and technical service of the central base customs of the Federal Customs Service of Russia, to six years. The official and his accomplices caused damage to the state amounting to 38 million rubles.
In December 2013, security forces almost fought their way through the checkpoint into the FCS building, significantly crushing the customs guards. Rumor has it that the directive not to allow FSB officers through the checkpoint was given personally by Belyaninov. It seems that he was the one who was most afraid of the “unscheduled” searches.
It seems that before the State Duma elections, the Kremlin has finally decided to take on one of the most corrupt departments in the country - the Federal Customs Service. This is not surprising, because the ratings of the party in power are steadily falling.
As a result of the scandal, the head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov was dismissed by order of Dmitry Medvedev - he will be replaced by the presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District Vladimir Bulavin. What information led the FSB to the customs management, who gave what testimony against Andrei Belyaninov, what new smuggling schemes were revealed during the searches - in the Novaya Gazeta investigation.
No sooner had the scandal with the arrests of high-ranking employees of the Investigative Committee died down than new shocks occurred in the country's security bloc: employees of the FSB's Internal Security Directorate (USB) came to search the head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) Andrei Belyaninov. Investigators visited him, as well as his two deputies - Ruslan Davydov and Andrei Strukov - and businessman Sergei Lobanov, who is close to the Federal Customs Service, as part of an investigation into a criminal case of alcohol smuggling.
The operation, prepared, according to our data, just one night before the start of the searches, ended in the best traditions of documentaries of the 90s: with video footage of the luxurious general’s palace, with photographs of cash laid out on the table, with the “wallet businessman” who left the country (to whom you have to decide whether to return to your homeland or wait to be put on the international wanted list). Nothing changes except the props: instead of Xerox boxes full of money, shoe boxes appear.
In this investigation
On July 14, Andrei Belyaninov celebrated his 59th birthday. The closest people were invited to the festive dinner at the Baku Yard restaurant on Rusakovskaya Street: relatives, colleagues, classmates. Throughout the evening, guests raised glasses to the health of the birthday boy, recalled his failed career as an actor (as a child, Belyaninov starred in the film “Children of Don Quixote”), and shared funny stories.
Andrei Belyaninov, his friends say, is an official atypical for modern Russia: very open, sarcastic. Many acquaintances call Belyaninov perhaps the most sincere person in the federal executive authorities.
“He was like that even in his youth - a joker, a rake. Sometimes it seems that in front of you is an adult child - naive, sometimes with some completely teenage ideas. One day we were walking down the street, and he saw a group of some brawlers and offered to fight with them. “You take on those, I take on these!” - speaks. They explain to him: “Andrey, calm down. You are healthy, but we are not. And if we win, how will the police officers feel when they check your documents at the police station?” Thank God, we talked him out of it,” recalls an entrepreneur who knows Belyaninov with a laugh.
“He loves to drive himself. There is an insert on the windshield “without the right of inspection” - and this is enough so that they will not be disturbed. Of course, he loves himself, but he definitely doesn’t feel pleasure from the lackey attitude towards himself.”
Another acquaintance, a federal official, also notes Belyaninov’s easy, sometimes turning into frivolous, attitude towards life: “A person holding the post of head of a department that is responsible for 55% of the revenue side of the budget seems to have to be different - constantly on edge, like a soldier on parade ground But Yurich, on the contrary, is calm and relaxed.”
Another friend of Belyaninov’s tells how he avoids the personal security assigned to him in every possible way: “He himself likes to drive. There is an insert on the windshield “without the right of inspection” - and this is enough so that they will not be disturbed. Of course, he loves himself, but he definitely doesn’t feel any pleasure from being treated like a lackey.”
A State Duma deputy who knows Belyaninov “at a distance” sees completely different qualities in him - excessive emotionality, sometimes turning into rudeness, complete disrespect for others, including colleagues in the security bloc.
“Once employees of the Investigative Committee conducted searches in the offices of ordinary employees of the Federal Customs Service. The next day, Andrei Yuryevich came to Bastrykin - and literally from the doorstep: “You, Alexander Ivanovich, where are you going? I have my own special service! You have something to present, so present it, but don’t interfere with our work,” the deputy recalls. According to the interlocutor, Belyaninov allowed himself to do the same in relation to the former head of Directorate “K” of the FSB SEB Viktor Voronin, whose subordinates repeatedly conflicted with employees of the Main Directorate for Combating Smuggling (GUBK) of the FCS. “At the same time, when Voronin started having problems, Belyaninov said: “This is my friend. We fight, but I support him." It was unexpected,” the deputy adds.
… “I wish you, Andrey Yuryevich, Siberian health, Caucasian longevity and St. Petersburg happiness,” one of the guests raised a toast to the birthday boy to the general laughter.
St. Petersburg's happiness did not happen: two weeks later, in the offices of the head of the Federal Customs Service, as well as his two deputies - Ruslan Davydov (supervises the law enforcement unit in the service) and Andrei Strukov (deputy chairman of the Federal Customs Service, supervises North-West Technical University) - the FSB's Internal Security Department (USB) conducted searches as part of a criminal case initiated by the Main Investigation Department (GID) of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the spring of this year on the fact of smuggling of alcoholic products (Article 200.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Having seized documents from the customs authorities’ workplaces, FSB operatives went to two country estates of Andrei Belyaninov, located in the village of Konakovo in the Tver Region and the village of Bachurino in New Moscow.
In the latter, in addition to the luxurious interiors traditional for Russian senior civil servants, the operational investigation team discovered a large sum of money: the total amount at today’s exchange rate is 66 million rubles. Later, Andrei Belyaninov, who himself, in his home tracksuit, was taking out shoe boxes filled with cash from the mezzanine, will explain that this money is “family savings.”
Andrey Belyaninov - about the recipe for official “longevity” (10 years as head of the Federal Customs Service): “I’m like that traffic cop who doesn’t raise his baton - I don’t stop anyone from violating. If I interfered, would I have worked for so long?
After carrying out the necessary investigative actions at the residential addresses, Belyaninov, accompanied by employees of the FSB Internal Security Service, was taken for interrogation to the Investigative Committee, in Tekhnichesky Lane, where he once came to argue with Bastrykin.
The head of the Federal Customs Service was released, according to his friends, after midnight - in the status of a witness.
A criminal case regarding the smuggling of alcoholic beverages was initiated on March 29, 2016. The reason was the materials of the FSB Internal Security Service officers, who discovered in the Ust-Luga port of St. Petersburg the illegal import of a batch of elite Courvoisier cognac from 1912 from the port of Hamburg under the guise of construction sealant. Subsequently, this cognac was supposed to replenish the bar list of the Buddha-Bar restaurant owned by the famous St. Petersburg businessman Mikhalchenko (now under arrest).
The damage suffered by the Russian budget from the submission of a fictitious customs declaration, which allowed the criminals to underestimate the amount of customs duties, as the investigation estimates, hardly exceeded 1.8 million rubles. But despite the insignificant amount of damage, in early April, operatives of the FSB Internal Security Service detained four people on suspicion of smuggling alcoholic beverages: deputy general director of Contrail Logistics North-West LLC Anatoly Kindzersky, general director of South-Eastern Trading Company LLC Ilya Pichko, chief security service of the holding company "Forum" Boris Korevsky and - from the second time - the owner of the latter, influential St. Petersburg businessman Dmitry Mikhalchenko.
All four were placed in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. According to an FSB officer familiar with the details of this criminal case, CSS operatives have been working on Mikhalchenko since 2015 (on September 25, the Moscow City Court authorized wiretapping of the businessman’s phones), but only in the case of Courvoisier cognac did they receive “irrefutable evidence of his participation in smuggling.”
“The damage may seem small, but the main thing is the documented fact of participation in these processes. Where there is cognac, there are also large quantities of clothing and electronics. This remains to be verified. And regarding “alcohol,” the investigation was supported by a good evidence base - there are good wiretapping results. There were also secret audio recordings of the object - to understand its plans,” says the FSB officer.
The hunt for Dmitry Mikhalchenko was not accidental - this businessman, who controlled the lion's share of import flows through the North-West Customs Administration, was considered a person from the inner circle of the former head of the FSO, Evgeny Murov, who left his post at the end of May this year. Murov, in turn, emphasizes several unrelated sources in law enforcement agencies, maintained friendly relations with the already mentioned FSB general Voronin, former deputy chairman of the Investigative Committee Vasily Piskarev (his powers were terminated by presidential decree in early May) and, finally, for the time being the current head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov.
Petr Sarukhanov / Novaya Gazeta ...The smuggling of Courvoisier cognac, according to an FSB officer, was carried out as follows: in early spring, Dmitry Mikhalchenko allegedly instructed his subordinate Boris Korevsky to find a company that would import alcohol for the needs of his restaurant with minimal monetary costs at the border.
Korevsky allegedly approached ULS-Global co-owner Igor Khavronov with this proposal, but he refused - their group imports expensive clothing, but not alcohol. (ULS-Global is a network of enterprises with a fleet of 350 trucks, an aircraft fleet of 8 Airbus A300-B4 and A310-300F freighters, and its own ferry Ferry 1.)
Last month, Novaya Gazeta wrote about this structure and its relationships with other participants in the transportation market ( see No. 65 of June 20, 2016 - “Smuggling Stars”). Then, let me remind you, we provided excerpts from the letters we received from the road carrier Dmitry Zarubin, who is in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center on charges of evading customs duties (Article 194 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and creating an organized criminal group (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Zarubin, in particular, noted that several influence groups allegedly operated in the commodity smuggling market in the NWTU zone - in addition to ULS-Global, these were allegedly Dmitry Mikhalchenko, an official of the St. Petersburg department of Rosreestr Boris Avakyan and Contrail Logistics North-West LLC.
The representative of the latter, businessman Anatoly Kindzersky, as a result, according to operatives, took on the task of transporting cognac for Dmitry Mikhalchenko.
An FSB employee familiar with the details of the criminal case notes: Kindzersky and Dmitry Mikhalchenko were allegedly two independent players in the “commodity smuggling” market, although both had the status of “untouchables” (as Dmitry Zarubin called them in his letters).
Kindzersky, like Mikhalchenko, had strong support from the leadership of the Federal Customs Service. “In September 2015, three operatives of the GUBK FCS - Dergachev, Muravyov and Starostin - began developing Kindzersky for several shipments at the Baltic customs. After this was reported to the management, the development was curtailed, and the operators were fired within one day,” an FSB operative gives an example.
According to him, Kindzersky at that time had not only useful business connections, but also family connections - his uncle allegedly worked as an adviser to Rosneft President Igor Sechin and even turned to him for help when his nephew was detained. But Sechin showed integrity: immediately after the initiation of a criminal case, his uncle was fired from Rosneft, the FSB employee concludes.
At the beginning of summer, Anatoly Kindzersky entered into a pre-trial agreement with the investigation. He became the first and so far the only defendant in the case who agreed to cooperate (Dmitry Mikhalchenko does not give any testimony at all). According to our sources in the FSB, it was thanks to Kindzersky’s testimony that the operational investigative group received grounds for conducting recent searches at the Federal Customs Service.
“Kindzersky showed not only the circumstances of the import of cognac for Mikhalchenko, but also agreed to expose the people who patronized him,” says the FSB officer. What did the deputy director of Contrail say that could put the entire head of the intelligence service at risk?
In accordance with the testimony of Anatoly Kindzersky, referred to by an FSB officer, Contrail was able to enlist the support of the FCS management thanks to the founder of Translogistic LLC Sergei Bausov: “Bausov is a person from Andrei Belyaninov’s close circle. He was even hired into the Union of Customs Service Veterans, although he never served in the Federal Customs Service. All so that his contacts with the leadership of the Federal Customs Service do not arouse suspicion. Bausov served as a “liaison officer” between Kindzersky and the head of the Federal Customs Service, for which he regularly received a salary.”
Bausov, according to the interlocutor, during interrogation at the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee on Tuesday evening, spoke about how and for what purposes he introduced Kindzersky to Belyaninov.
Another “emissary” of the head of the Federal Customs Service, with whom Anatoly Kindzersky, according to testimony, had to communicate, is businessman Sergei Lobanov.
Lobanov, according to an FSB officer, can be considered the closest person to Andrei Belyaninov: “In his testimony, Kindzersky admitted that Lobanov was allegedly introduced to him as a person responsible for delicate work - ensuring schemes for the import and export of goods and carrying out mutual settlements.”
Unlike Sergei Bausov, the operatives were unable to find Sergei Lobanov at home or at work - on Tuesday morning he was supposed to return to Moscow from Lithuania, but for some reason he was delayed.
Sergei Lobanov is only 33 years old, but he can be considered a fully established businessman: he runs a large insurance company and also owns shares in commercial banks in Russia and Moldova.
Lobanov, according to an entrepreneur familiar with him, should owe his triumphant ascent to his father, a former KGB officer of the USSR, who served together with the future head of the Federal Customs Service in the same station in the GDR.
At the end of 2011, Sergei Lobanov first appeared among the founders of the Arsenal insurance company, which two years later became the official insurer of cargo carriers from the Federal Customs Service. This happened after Andrei Belyaninov, by his order, canceled the validity of the so-called TIR carnets (previously they were used by cargo carriers), and instead introduced mandatory insurance certificates, which Arsenal began to sell.
According to the deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, Dmitry Gorovtsov, one of Andrei Belyaninov’s most consistent and harsh critics, “with one order, an entire segment of the road transportation market was intercepted.” “I have repeatedly drawn the attention of law enforcement and control agencies to this blatant fact: the FSB, the Investigative Committee, the FAS... Last time, in April of this year, at a reception with the Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, I once again focused on the fact that people associated with the FCS unjustly enrich themselves. Where does this money go? Which banks? I hope the investigation will answer these questions,” says Gorovtsov.
However, the interests of Sergei Lobanov are not limited to insurance of cargo carriers, as noted by the official representative of the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin, the young businessman “owns at least 15 companies.” But the entrepreneur’s most important assets are stakes in the Russian Nefteprombank and the Moldavian Victoria Bank.
Structures associated with Lobanov acquired 40% of the shares in Victoria from the companies of the Moldovan banker Vyacheslav Platon. The deal was mediated, according to an entrepreneur familiar with Lobanov, by another Moldovan businessman, Ilan Shor, the largest owner of the Duty Free store chain in his country.
Both Platon and Shor are today under investigation in the Chisinau pre-trial detention center - both are suspected of economic crimes.
“Sergei had only one deal with Platon, but Shor can be considered his full-fledged business partner in Moldova,” says Lobanov’s acquaintance.
Shor and Lobanov, it must be said, could become partners in Russia - last year they wanted to lease land plots adjacent to international automobile checkpoints to build 45 Duty Free stores on them. Andrei Belyaninov came up with the idea of allocating these plots and transferring them to commercial companies, but this initiative did not find support in the government.
Ilan Shor allegedly knows Belyaninov himself, says an acquaintance of the latter. According to him, they were allegedly introduced by Kozhin at one time ( former head of the Presidential Administration.— A.S.). Shor ensured the centralization of the supply of Moldovan fruits and vegetables through Lobanov’s channels.”
“Shor is the key to Lobanov’s money located in Moldova,” adds the FSB officer, but suggests not rushing to find it: “Now it is important to understand what mechanisms allow unscrupulous carriers to deceive the Russian budget.”
According to him, in addition to the well-known schemes for illegal declaration of goods (when goods with a high customs duty are transported under the guise of goods with a low customs duty), the so-called “express delivery”, introduced by order of Andrei Belyaninov in November 2014, has recently become a very popular direction.
Its essence is this: individual companies were granted by the Federal Customs Service exclusive rights to duty-free import of consumer goods ordered by Russian citizens in foreign online stores. In the case of such imports, customs declarations are not filled out, and the only document submitted to the customs authority is the register of customers of the goods.
Photo: RIA Novosti According to sources from the FSB, after the introduction of this innovation, part of the smuggling flows moved specifically to “express delivery”: “Let’s say there is a company that has received from the FCS the right to duty-free import of goods. You enter into an agreement with a conditional Italian freight forwarder, who has an agreement (or maybe not) with some Italian online store. Bayer ( buyer. — A.S.) a boutique purchases a commercial batch of clothing weighing 5 thousand kg for a Russian store, but the formal recipient of this clothing in Sheremetyevo is a company that has received authority from the Federal Customs Service. Here you don’t even have to take risks by making false declarations - simply a register of customers is transferred to the customs authority (this is a table in which random names can be indicated, without passport data, without signatures, based on 20-30 kg of clothes per person) and so on the goods are cleared through customs.”
According to the interlocutor, the cost of “express delivery” services for a consignment of goods weighing 5 thousand kg is 90 thousand euros. “And this money can only be received by those whom the FCS management has granted the right to such transportation,” he says.
This topic may also be raised within the framework of the current case of smuggling of alcoholic beverages, says an FSB officer, since in the office of Sergei Lobanov’s Arsenal insurance company, CSS operatives seized an “unofficial report” of one of these carriers, Tamarix Logistics LLC (June 2 2015 Belyaninov included this company among other organizations that have the right to engage in “express delivery”)
Photo of operational footage during a search of the house of the head of the Federal Customs Service Belyaninov. Photo: Gazeta.ru Immediately after the incident at the Federal Customs Service, reports appeared in the media about the impending resignation of the head of the department, Andrei Belyaninov. Soon, the head of the legal department of the Federal Customs Service, Larisa Cherkesova, denied this information. According to our data, the high-ranking customs officer himself did not intend to resign - he was not embarrassed by either the suspicions (even if they did not result in the corresponding investigative decisions) about the participation of the FCS leadership in smuggling, or the provocative photographs of millions of “family savings” hidden in boxes from shoes However, on the morning of July 28, Dmitry Medvedev, by his order, dismissed Belyaninov, appointing Vladimir Bulavin, presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District, to the post of head of the Federal Customs Service.
According to a federal official we know, once at an interdepartmental meeting attended by generals from Directorate “K” of the FSB, the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office, Andrei Belyaninov, responding to a sarcastic remark from a colleague about the recipe for “longevity” (he has headed the FCS for more than 10 years), allegedly He spread his hands: “I’m like that traffic cop who doesn’t raise his baton, I don’t stop anyone from violating. If I interfered, would I have worked for so long?
It seems that the customs general did not pay attention to the fact that many of those whom he “did not interfere” themselves lost their posts or went to pre-trial detention centers.
Nikolay Sergeev, Dmitry Butrin, Vladislav Novy
After yesterday's searches conducted by FSB and Investigative Committee officers in a criminal case of smuggling, a career may be put to an end Andrey Belyaninov, who led the Federal Customs Service (FCS) for ten years. They decided to check the head of the Federal Customs Service for involvement in the illegal supply of elite alcohol to Russia. According to investigators, they were organized by a St. Petersburg billionaire, head of the Forum holding company. Dmitry Mikhalchenko, one of whose partners, having decided to cooperate with the investigation, testified against customs officers. However, Andrei Belyaninov completed the investigative actions only in the status of a witness in a smuggling case.
After spending several hours in the mansion, ICR operatives and investigators returned to Moscow, where at that moment their colleagues were conducting searches in the central building of the Federal Customs Service, located on Novozavodskaya Street. Here, in addition to the office of the head of the department, according to official representative of the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin, they were interested in the offices of his two deputies. The seizure of documents was carried out from the deputy head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Strukov, to whom, according to the departmental order, the main organizational and inspection department, legal department and business management are subordinate. The participants of the operational-investigative actions also visited the Deputy Director of the Federal Customs Service Ruslan Davydov, who oversees the main department for organizing customs clearance and customs control, the main department of information technology, as well as the main department of customs control after the release of goods.
Meanwhile, another group of security officers searched the office of Arsenal Insurance Company LLC, whose president is Sergei Lobanov, who previously worked as an adviser to Andrei Belyaninov. Sergei Lobanov, the Investigative Committee noted, was of interest to the investigation because he was “the founder of at least 15 different companies whose activities are closely related to the Federal Customs Service of Russia.” “During the searches, objects and documents relevant to the investigation of the criminal case were seized,” added Vladimir Markin.
According to Kommersant's sources, after the searches, Andrei Belyaninov was interrogated at the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee. During the interrogation, according to Kommersant, the investigators tried to confirm or refute the data that was provided to them by the co-owner of the Contrail Logistics North-West company, Anatoly Kindzersky, as part of a pre-trial cooperation agreement concluded with Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin.
The latter allegedly reported that Contrail Logistic North-West, which found itself involved in a major smuggling scandal, received the status of an authorized economic operator (allowing it to minimize financial and time costs for customs operations and optimize the logistics chain) thanks to the help of Sergei Lobanov, who, together with his former leaders allegedly could be financially interested in such cooperation. The defendant’s lawyer, Natalya Belousova, refused to disclose her client’s testimony, since she gave the corresponding signature to the investigator.
In any case, as a source close to the investigation told Kommersant, the searches of Andrei Belyaninov and his subordinates were carried out as if they were witnesses in a criminal case. The head of the Federal Customs Service retained his witness status after the interrogation.
We are talking about a criminal case initiated by the State Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on the fact of “illegal movement of alcoholic beverages across the customs border on a large scale and non-payment of mandatory customs duties” (Part 3 of Article 200.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In addition to Anatoly Kindzersky, the defendants in the case are the head of the Forum holding, Dmitry Mikhalchenko, the head of its security service, the former deputy head of the UBEP Central Internal Affairs Directorate of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Boris Korevsky, and several other businessmen.
According to investigators, using the special status and connections of Anatoly Kindzersky in the Federal Customs Service, they created a criminal group that was engaged in smuggling supplies of elite alcohol and other goods to Russia. Now the group members are accused of smuggling worth 1.7 million rubles. In containers disguised as sealant, exclusive cognac Courvoisier 1912 and other expensive alcohol were transported to Russia from Europe.
Lawyer Kirill Yashenkov, representing Dmitry Mikhalchenko, explained to Kommersant that his client personally does not know either Andrei Belyaninov or his deputies. “Moreover, in the Forum holding there are no areas of activity or companies involved in transportation or so-called customs clearance, and therefore searches at the Federal Customs Service do not have a direct connection with my client, although they were carried out within the framework of the same criminal case,” said Mr. Yashenkov. He suggested that the investigative actions were carried out in connection with the activities of another person involved in the investigation, who was directly related to the preparation of customs declarations and other documents. According to Kommersant, we are talking about Anatoly Kindzersky.
The lawyer also noted that investigators have not yet raised any questions with Dmitry Mikhalchenko regarding the work of the FCS management. As lawyer Yashenkov clarified, his client is still being held in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center, does not admit his guilt on the charges brought against him, and there is no pressure on him. Answering a question from Kommersant, Mr. Yashenkov said that the fact of searches at the leadership of the Federal Customs Service is not a basis for choosing a more lenient preventive measure for his client - house arrest or bail. “I would like, of course, for this to be the case, but it’s unlikely to happen - not so long ago, Dmitry Mikhalchenko’s arrest term was extended by four months at once - until the end of September,” the lawyer explained. In addition, he noted: the amount of allegedly smuggled alcohol confiscated in the criminal case remained the same, which was announced by ICR investigator Sergei Novikov at the end of March - 1.7 million rubles. As Kommersant was told, then a representative of the investigation explained that approximately 10% of the total volume of seized goods is estimated at this figure. According to the defense, the amount will most likely increase later, when the results of the examinations ordered in the criminal case appear.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that this is at least the second attempt by the FSB and the Investigative Committee to find a way to contact the head of the Federal Customs Service. The first was undertaken back in 2013. When the security officers, while cashing, detained businessman Stanislav Sorokin, who, having agreed to cooperate with the Investigative Committee, testified that he was working with money that was allegedly stolen during the implementation of a contract for the supply of software for the Federal Customs Service. Based on the testimony of the entrepreneur, the security officers detained Elena Soboleva, deputy head of the planning department for equipping with information technology of the FCS, intending to use her help to deal with one of the organizers of the departmental competition that aroused suspicion - the former head of the main department of information technology of the FCS, and then the representative of the customs in Ukraine, Lieutenant General Alexey Shashaev. Considering that the general is a longtime associate of the head of the Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov, the latter was obviously the target of the investigation. However, the scheme failed from the very beginning, as the lady refused to testify. Nevertheless, at the recent debate between the parties, the state prosecution for especially large-scale fraud requested three years, six months and five years in prison for Shashaev and Soboleva, respectively. It is expected that their verdict will be announced on July 28. As for Andrei Belyaninov, he was not even questioned as a witness in this case.
By the way, according to a Kommersant source, the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are currently investigating two criminal cases of “major theft” (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in the Federal Customs Service.
Let us recall that the largest administrative discussion that has been going on around the FCS over the past few years was its merger with the Federal Tax Service (FTS), however, it was along this line that the FCS management could not expect any attacks. Let us recall that from 2006 to 2015, the FCS was a separate government department - before that, customs was subordinate to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, but with the arrival of Andrei Belyaninov as head of the FCS, it began to report to the Prime Minister. In essence, the FCS (like, for example, the formally “civilian” Rosfinmonitoring) was more reminiscent of the law enforcement agencies of the presidential bloc - the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB. Conversations about the need to unite all “profitable” government structures under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance began back in 2008, they reached their peak in 2014, however, projects that were repeatedly discussed by the president, prime minister and the first deputy prime minister in charge of the topic Igor Shuvalov, invariably went “to the top” with the motivation of the need to make a political decision - and was not accepted. The situation changed quite imperceptibly in the summer of 2015, when those around Andrei Belyaninov suddenly started talking about the readiness of the FCS to join the long process of integration of the FCS and the Federal Tax Service: it was assumed that it would end in 2017, and it was then, according to Kommersant, that Andrei Belyaninov was considering resigning (Kommersant’s interlocutors in the White House staff confirmed this information back in the spring of 2016). At the same time, both those around Igor Shuvalov and the government apparatus argued that the integration of the Federal Customs Service and the Federal Tax Service is a low-priority issue in comparison with the issue of transferring to the Federal Tax Service the administration of insurance contributions to off-budget social funds (Pension Fund, Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund and Social Insurance Fund), which was resolved until January 2016.
However, on January 15, Presidential Decree N13 concerned not only social fees, but also the resubordination of the Federal Customs Service and Rosalkogolregulirovanie to the Ministry of Finance. At this point, the question of what would happen next with the customs service was considered more or less resolved: the process of integrating the Federal Customs Service and other departments into the new “revenue perimeter” under the control of the Ministry of Finance and based on the technologies of the Federal Treasury and the Federal Tax Service was supposed to take about a year and a half , during which personnel reforms within customs did not make much sense and would even, with some probability, slow down the overall process for the Ministry of Finance. On the other hand, no traces of direct resistance to the integration of the FCS into the system of the Ministry of Finance were observed, and in the “road map”, which describes the beginning of the creation by the Ministry of Finance of a “revenue perimeter”, which includes all revenues and fees to the budget, neither the FCS nor Rosalkogolregulirovanie as departments which the reform directly affects in 2017 were not mentioned. At the same time, information that Andrei Belyaninov was ready to resign appeared in January 2016 - immediately after the appearance of decree N13, but this did not happen. And there was no particular rush to create a “perimeter” - for example, the federal law transferring the rights to administer fees to the Federal Tax Service was signed by Vladimir Putin only on July 4, 2016 - these were additions to the Tax Code.
From July 1992 to September 1994 - Deputy Chairman of the Board of REA Bank at the Russian Economic Academy (formerly Plekhanov Ministry of Economy). Since September 1994 - Deputy, and since September 1995 - Chairman of the Board of Novikombank, created by the Association of Veterans of Foreign Intelligence.
From 1999 to 2000, he held the positions of financial director, deputy general director of FSUE Promexport Sergei Chemezov. The federal state unitary enterprise was engaged in the sale of military equipment abroad. On November 4, 2000, by presidential decree, he was appointed general director of FSUE Rosoboronexport, formed by the merger of Promexport and FSUE Rosvooruzhenie. From April 2004 to May 2006 he worked as director of the Federal Service for Defense Procurement.
Since May 12, 2006 - head of the Federal Customs Service in the governments of Mikhail Fradkov, Viktor Zubkov, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. Since October 2011, he has also headed the Joint Board of Customs Services of the Member States of the Customs Union. Chairman of the Council of Heads of Customs Services of the CIS Member States.
Doctor of Economic Sciences, Doctor of Political Sciences, Honored Economist of Russia. According to the income statement, in 2015 Mr. Belyaninov earned 12.99 million rubles, his wife - 46.7 million rubles. He was awarded the Order of Friendship, also has the Order of Friendship of the Republic of Armenia, and was awarded a personalized Makarov pistol “for his great personal contribution to strengthening the security of the Kyrgyz Republic.”
Married, three children.
On the morning of July 26, searches took place in the offices of the head of the Federal Customs Service, Andrei Belyaninov, and his ex-adviser, and now the head of the Arsenal group of companies, Sergei Lobanov. By lunchtime, unofficial information appeared that the head of the Federal Customs Service was resigning. And by the evening of the same day, the results of the search in the house of the head of the Federal Customs Service were made public: 58 million in cash, collectible pens, art objects. “Family savings,” explains the head of the Federal Customs Service. But the resignation letter has already been written, just in case.
I wanted to leave, but they didn’t let me in
One has already spoken
Why the situation moved from a dead point and everything turned so rapidly becomes clear from the following circumstance: one of the four accused, deputy head of Contrail Logistics North-West LLC Andrey Kindzersky made a plea deal. And even, as the lawyer said Igor Reshetnikov, who represents the interests of another defendant, deputy head of the Forum holding company Boris Korevsky, managed to give “extensive testimony” to the investigation. Reshetnikov’s client, Boris Korevsky, refused to testify, citing Art. 51 of the Constitution, and “I definitely didn’t say anything about Belyaninov”, the lawyer emphasized. And finally, Director of South-Eastern Trading Company LLC Ilya Pichko also left the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center on bail of 10 million rubles.
The source cited by RIA Novosti summarizes all this information as follows: “The investigation has reliable information that Belyaninov and his adviser Sergei Lobanov are connected with the protection of smuggling”.
However, in the case of large-scale alcohol smuggling, the head of the Federal Customs Service is a witness, and until a legal assessment has been given of the facts revealed during the searches, it is too early to talk about initiating a criminal case against Andrei Belyaninov or other representatives of the department. All that remains is to patiently wait for the development of events - and it should be interesting. Active procedural actions in the “cognac” case will begin in the near future.
The multidisciplinary holding Forum, owned by Dmitry Mikhalchenko, was founded in the early 2000s. Its main assets are the Bronka multifunctional sea transhipment complex, the FORUM restaurant group, the Baltstroy company, and the Kirov spinning and thread mill in St. Petersburg.
