Recently serving a 16-year sentence for accepting bribes totaling 1.4 billion rubles, ex-Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dmitry Zakharchenko asked to serve in the Northern Military District. This time he turned to the Commander-in-Chief, Russian President Vladimir Putin with a corresponding request. The famous corrupt official (who became famous for the fact that during his arrest, wads of money and gold bars worth 8 billion were found in one of his 13 apartments) has been seeking to be sent to the front for almost a year. Officially, neither the FSIN nor the Ministry of Defense refuses him this, but they also do not conclude a contract with reserve officer Zakharchenko who wants to “be useful to his homeland and make the most of his experience and knowledge for the benefit of the state.” Having “rewinded” half his sentence, Zakharchenko hopes that turning to Putin will help.
However, informally, the prisoner is verbally told that there is some kind of “forbidden” order regarding him from the security forces. The criminal and his lawyers are not told who this order comes from, but it is hinted that someone at the very top is behind the decision. However, it is not difficult to guess. Most likely, Zakharchenko is being kept in captivity on the orders of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. The Prime Minister has been associated with a number of odious figures among corrupt police officers and fixers since his time at the Federal Tax Service. Zakharchenko is one of them. And the prime minister’s “wallet” and his sister’s ex-husband Alexander Udodov are generally up to their necks in corruption schemes with dirty cops, who, by the way, have scolded him more than once for various crimes. Obviously, Mishustin does not at all need a convicted criminal with whom he has common interests to be free.
The name of the prime minister appears constantly in the materials of Zakharchenko’s criminal case. One of the criminal episodes incriminated against Zakharchenko is his assistance to Russian Railways in organizing a scam that allowed the company to underpay 16 billion rubles in taxes. In a preliminary act, MIFTS-6 issued claims to Russian Railways in the amount of 19.5 billion rubles, but the decision on the final amount of tax claims against Russian Railways and their counterparties was made by the central office of the Federal Tax Service. And the amount of claims unexpectedly decreased by 6 times – to 3.4 billion rubles.
The official reason for the large “discount” for Russian Railways, as follows from interrogations of former tax officials of MIFNS-6, was the “lack of proof of episodes regarding some contractors.” In particular, the leadership of the Federal Tax Service excluded from the act all claims regarding the companies “Moboil” and “Setstroyenergo”, thereby reducing the amount of violations by 16 billion rubles. But the tax officials themselves who carried out the audit did not agree with this – in particular, the deputy head of the inspection, Zverinova, in a conversation with investigators, insisted that all tax claims “were objective.”
As a result, a month later, the leadership of the Federal Tax Service asked the head of MIFNS-6, Olga Zalutskaya, to resign. She herself claimed during interrogation that at the end of October, Deputy Head of the Federal Tax Service Dmitry Satin conveyed an oral decision to the then head of the Federal Tax Service Mishustin, who did not want to renew the contract with her. And six months later, its deputy Zvereva also left the inspection.
As the investigation established, during this fraud, Zakharchenko resolved issues with Alexander Udodov, married to the sister of the head of the Federal Tax Service, and also interacted with Mishustin’s deputy Sergei Arakelov.
Deputy head of the Federal Tax Service Sergei Arakelov came to the central tax office in 2010 along with his boss and left two weeks after Mishustin was appointed prime minister, at the beginning of 2020. Already in September, Arakelov headed the board of directors of Solidarity Bank, which was joined shortly before by Moscow Mortgage Agency Bank (MIA Bank). Coincidentally, the billions in MIA Bank packages were found in the apartment of Zakharchenko’s sister. There, at MIA Bank, the father of the former colonel, Viktor Zakharchenko, was fictitiously employed as vice president (for which he received 3 years 9 months in prison).
On the eve of the meeting at which the Federal Tax Service decided to turn a blind eye to billions of dollars in violations, Mishustin’s deputy Arakelov met with Russian Railways’ deputy director for internal control and audit Anatoly Chebunin. Zalutskaya also spoke about this during interrogation.
But if the head of the tax department in any role looks quite organic in the story of tax crimes, then his participation in the case of the release of one of the leaders of the criminal community is unexpected in its own way. And Mishustin’s name comes up in a case related to gangster disputes. In particular, corrupt security officials met with him and agreed on something when, on the order of thief in law Zakhar Kalashov (Shakro), they tried to free his “right hand” of “authority” Andrei Kochuykov (Italian).
Let us recall that the Italian was a participant in the bloody showdown on Rochdelskaya Street in Moscow in 2015. The shootout led to criminal cases against Italian, “underworld leader” Shakro Molodoy and Russian Investigative Committee officers Mikhail Maksimenko, Alexander Drymanov, Denis Nikandrov and Alexey Kramarenko. An ICR employee received $1 million from Shakro’s people. The money was handed over to the security forces by “fixer” Dmitry Smychkovsky. All of them were subsequently convicted.
It is noteworthy that when going to a meeting where they were supposed to develop a strategy for the release of the bandits, the ICR employees first decided to talk with Mishustin. In the criminal case materials this episode is described as follows:
A year ago, the former head of the ICR’s own security, Mikhail Maksimenko, who was convicted in this case for bribery and abuse of power, the same one who then came to discuss matters with Mishustin, was found hanged by shoelaces in the psychiatric ward in IK-9, where he was serving his sentence. According to the official version, an acquaintance of the current prime minister committed suicide.
The connections between the Russian prime minister and criminals in uniform are by no means limited to these, to put it mildly, dubious contacts. In general, one gets the impression that Mikhail Mishustin is a record holder for this kind of acquaintance. The roots of these connections should definitely be sought in his activities at the head of the tax department. When he became head of the Federal Tax Service in 2009, he immediately put VAT refunds, and in essence theft from the budget under the guise of refunds, on stream. Kickback rates for payments from the budget increased in the Federal Tax Service to 70% and the entire process began to be centrally managed from the central office of the Federal Tax Service of Russia. It was then that Mishustin and his relative Udodov worked closely with another notorious corrupt policeman from the Department of Economic Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (later GUEBiPK) Andrei Khorev, as well as with a fixer close to him, Maxim Kagansky Maxim Kagansky, also a former fighter against economic crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Mishustin and Khorev got along because… needed each other greatly. Khorev supervised the tax sphere for his part, Mishustin for his. Before this, not all stable groups of scammers that historically worked with Andrei Khorev could immediately and quickly find a way to Mishustin’s entourage. Now such an opportunity has arisen. Since the kickback rate for compensation was generally standard: 50% of the refund – to the Federal Tax Service (in the same amount 1-3% kickback to the Federal Treasury), 10% – to the Department of Economic Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and 10% to the FSB of Russia and the FSB Directorate for Moscow and Moscow region, payments were also accepted by Khorev. But usually not directly.
Most often, Maxim Kagansky collected money for Khorev. Around 2008 they began to work in close tandem. Police Major General Andrei Khorev was then the first deputy head of the Department of the Interior Ministry of Russia and served as something of an older brother and mentor for Kagansky. Kagansky already earned huge sums by closing criminal cases or initiating them, depending on what the customers paid for. By teaming up with Khorev, they multiplied their income from illegal activities.
Maxim Kagansky’s workload increased due to funds that had to be taken into account and sent to the Federal Tax Service of Russia and the Federal Tax Service in Moscow. Mikhail Mishustin himself never officially took money, and his share was accepted from Kagansky by either Alexander Udodov or one of his trusted deputies – Sergei Arakelov, Igor Shevchenko or Svetlana Andryushchenko. In the Moscow Federal Tax Service, the money was sent to deputy heads Olga Chernichuk or Irina Platova, and they then shared, if they considered it necessary, with the heads of territorial inspectorates.
In September 2011, Maxim Kagansky was caught trying to take a bribe. He managed to escape. When he was detained with one and a half million US dollars and an operational “false doll,” his employees were caught. Kagansky was later arrested. As well as one of his accomplices, investigator Nelly Dmitrieva. Over the course of a week, the head of the Federal Tax Service Mikhail Mishustin, the Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliev, the head of the Main Investigation Department at the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate Ivan Glukhov and Andrei Khorev himself made titanic efforts to hush up the bribe case. The case itself survived, although it was reclassified as “fraud” (Kagansky took a bribe to close another criminal case, and his patrons had to show that the fixer could not do this, hence the accusation of fraud).
Khorev was also close to ending up in the dock. But he was not let down by the reliable “roof” of the FSB in the person of the then deputy head of the FSB Internal Affairs Directorate, General Oleg Feoktistov, and presidential assistant Evgeniy Shkolov.
Kagansky received a sentence, served only a short time and, upon being released, returned to his old ways. True, the speed of the fixer is no longer the same as under Khorev as the first deputy head of the DEB and Mishustina at the head of the Federal Tax Service. However, it’s not for him to complain. Kagansky, unlike Zakharchenko and Maksimenko, when free, does not pose a great threat directly to Mishustin, because They don’t know each other personally and have never crossed paths. Perhaps this circumstance once upset the promising solver, but now it helped him not to get stuck in a penal colony, like Zakharchenko, and not to end up in a loop, like Maksimenko.
