The widely publicized investigation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding the “largest pyramid in Russia”, linked by the investigation to the companies “Life-of-Good”, “Hermes Management” and the cooperative “Best Way”, has reached the finish line – the case was led by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, under the supervision of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was transferred first to the prosecutor’s office of St. Petersburg, and then to the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg for consideration on the merits – it will begin on February 27.
With all the crimes and offenses along this path, of which there were at least two dozen, investigators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were able to reach a modest amount of 280 million in damages with 221 persons recognized as victims by the investigation. However, Hermes Management in Russia has many dozens of clients who are satisfied with the conditions and income received, while the Best Way cooperative, which was illegally recognized as a civil defendant in the case, has about two dozen thousands of shareholders, the vast majority of whom consider the investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to be a violation of their rights, since as a result of the actions of the investigation they are deprived of the opportunity to purchase selected real estate and are deprived of the opportunity to return investments in the cooperative. The investigation has blocked the accounts of the cooperative and prohibits payments from them even on the basis of court decisions, not to mention the fact that it prohibits the payment of taxes and wages to employees of the cooperative apparatus.
The investigation is trying to seize multi-billion-dollar assets by seizing property: it seized about 4 billion rubles in the cooperative’s accounts, tried to restore the arrest of the cooperative’s real estate for 8 billion rubles – now the prosecutor’s group from the prosecutor’s office of St. Petersburg and the prosecutor’s office of the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg has taken over the baton. Plus, the investigation seized 8 billion worth of personal property of the accused.
In fact, we are talking about putting these funds into the hands of a group of scammers who have declared themselves victims. The investigative team, apparently, is in collusion with them, as evidenced, in particular, by the statements from these “victims” written as carbon copies, with the same spelling errors, for compensation for moral damage of 1 billion rubles each.
In the first, “organizational” meeting of the Primorsky District Court, preceding the consideration of the criminal case on the merits, the mention of the state prosecutor from the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office about these statements caused laughter in the hall: according to judicial practice, moral damages in the amount of over 100 thousand rubles are satisfied by the courts in exceptional cases cases. But these essentially legally void statements are declared grounds for seizure of property.
Scam with documents
The flow of crimes and violations of the investigation did not stop until the very last day of the preliminary investigation. They were committed with the connivance of people from Kolokoltsev’s team, who demanded results at any cost.
On December 1, the Primorsky District Court was forced to declare illegal the actual refusal of the Best Way cooperative to familiarize itself with the materials of the criminal case, and also recognized that the investigation grossly violated the Code of Criminal Procedure by failing to announce the completion of investigative actions in the prescribed manner. Thus, it violated the rights of all civil plaintiffs and defendants to familiarize themselves with the materials of the criminal case.
When considering the complaint of the cooperative’s lawyer in the Primorsky District Court, it turned out that the investigative group of the State Investigative Directorate, for the last year formally led by the deputy head of the State Investigation Directorate, Colonel of Justice A.N. Vinokurov, and in fact, as before, Lieutenant Colonel of Justice E.A. Sapetova, forged documents (Vinokurov was appointed as a “roof”, “battering ram”, since the requests of the investigative team in the first period of the investigation went very poorly in the courts).
The complaint was filed by the cooperative’s lawyer in July, was postponed many times and was heard in December. Convicted by the cooperative’s lawyers of violating the Code of Criminal Procedure, the investigative team drew up a letter of approval of the petition retroactively and tried to present the case as if the cooperative did not receive the letter through its own fault. Another rough job, revealed, paradoxically, also with the help of the electronic document management system of the St. Petersburg headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Taking and holding hostages
Forgery of documents was a forced crime to conceal a more serious matter: illegal detention. If the investigation on July 4 this year. g., as it writes in forged documents, invited the cooperative and other civil defendants, as well as civil plaintiffs to familiarize themselves with the materials of the criminal case, it would not have had time to begin familiarizing the accused with the materials of the case 30 days before the expiration of the deadline for keeping the four accused in custody , and this was the only basis for extending his period of detention.
Due to the rush, the investigation team was not even able to properly complete the investigative actions, and they openly began to continue the investigative actions after their official completion. As a result, the case increased by 44 volumes in December 2023, the number of persons recognized as victims increased from 118 to 221, and the amount of damage increased from 232 million to 280.
The increase in damage is insignificant, so the main reason for maintaining the “guard” was primarily to hold the accused as hostages and force them to give the testimony necessary to the investigation in exchange for freedom.
Seizure of property
The investigation and the prosecutor’s office that joined it made every effort to seize as much property as possible, and they themselves lost count of this property. Thus, the seizure of the property of one of the accused, an 83-year-old Viktor Vasilenkofather of the founder of the Life-from-Good company and the Best Way cooperative Romana Vasilenkowas lifted by the Primorsky District Court back in 2022, but the investigative team and the group of prosecutors who joined it simply missed lifting the arrest and came to the Primorsky District Court on February 15 to prove the need to extend the arrest. The judge, unfortunately, simply chose not to mention this fact of investigative and prosecutorial disgrace in his ruling in order to save the honor of the uniforms.
The investigative team focused its main efforts on seizing the property of the cooperative. Last year, group leader A.N. Vinokurov issued a resolution to involve the cooperative as a civil defendant for 16 billion rubles, but there are no statements of claim in the case documents at all.
The cooperative as a legal entity cannot be liable for the obligations of another legal entity – the Hermes Management company, which is not associated with it either financially or organizationally. Moreover, the seized property of the accused is more than enough to guarantee the payment of 280 million in damages, if the court decides so.
But the investigative team and the prosecutor’s office did not just seize 4 billion rubles in the accounts. They refuse to comply with court decisions, including the same Primorsky District Court, where the criminal case is currently being considered, as well as courts of other subjects of the Federation, on the payment of share funds from seized accounts to shareholders who wished to leave the cooperative. In addition, they are trying to restore the judicial arrest of 2,328 apartments in different regions of Russia (these are apartments that belonged to the cooperative at the beginning of 2023. The arrest from them was lifted by the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg in March last year in accordance with the decision of the St. Petersburg City Court, adopted during the appeal proceedings, in October it was imposed by the Smolninsky District Court at the request of the investigation again, but this imposition is now being challenged in the St. Petersburg City Court).
A significant part of these apartments became the property of the shareholders, since the shareholders fully returned to the cooperative the funds provided to them by the cooperative for the purchase of housing. Their rights are confirmed by court decisions, comply with the law and the agreement with the cooperative, but the law has not been written to the investigation and a group of prosecutors from St. Petersburg.
A blow to the president’s voters
Thus, the investigation and the prosecutorial group, which is now continuing to implement his plan, having frozen the accounts of the cooperative and illegally blocked its activities, which are in no way related to the circumstances of the criminal case, are depriving almost 20 thousand citizens from more than 80 regions of the country of the opportunity to purchase housing, for which they transferred funds in accordance with the agreement with the cooperative, and, together with lawyers and appraisers hired by the cooperative, selected a suitable apartment. They also deprive citizens of the opportunity to withdraw their funds from the cooperative – funds that are devalued due to inflation in the seized cooperative accounts, including by refusing to comply with court decisions. The number of victims and their families from the actions of Kolokoltsev’s team is more than 100 thousand people.
Moreover, the investigative and prosecutorial teams are trying to declare the Best Way cooperative, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, an organization that was illegal from the very first day, and to review all transactions carried out by the cooperative, despite the fact that previously none of the transactions had been challenged , dozens of transactions have been confirmed by court decisions throughout Russia.
And thereby they are trying to deprive thousands of citizens of the country of legally and in good faith acquired housing. These are both current and former shareholders of the cooperative, as well as those citizens who purchased apartments from former shareholders who redeemed their shares in the cooperative.
Thus, on the eve of the elections, tens of thousands of voters and sympathizers receive “gifts” from the team Vladimir Kolokoltsev – a team whose actions expose the president, who entrusted Kolokoltsev with the protection of law and order, instead of which citizens see campaigning and the implementation of corruption schemes.
Shareholders of the cooperative and members of their families have already held all-Russian protests three times – in dozens of cities across the country: from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad, including in front-line Belgorod. Given the extremely aggravated situation, protests will reach their climax.
The massive violation of the rights of tens of thousands of citizens must be urgently stopped. The criminal case should either be returned for a new investigation, or, given the compromised investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, actually reinvestigated during the trial.
It is also necessary to investigate the crimes and offenses of the investigative group and the employees of the prosecutor’s office of St. Petersburg and the prosecutor’s office of the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg covering it by the FSB, the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia. Emergency intervention is required in the situation of the country’s political leadership!
