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From embezzlement to bribe

From embezzlement to bribe

There is another corruption scandal in the Northern capital. The regional FSB Directorate caught red-handed the head of the 5th department of the investigative unit of the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Igor Shikhovtsov. Now he is involved in a case of bribery for “solving” someone else’s issue. The Kompromat.group editors were looking into what direction the investigation into this scandal will move.

Allegro at GSU

The detention took place in general according to the classical scheme. Lawyer Oleg Kosatenko, handed over to investigator Shikhovtsov 8 million rubles as a “thank you”. Colonel Igor Shikhovtsov was immediately taken into custody by FSB operatives along with the money. According to rumors, another intermediary was involved in the transfer of the bribe, but this does not play a significant role in the current scandalous story. The bribe, according to official data, “grew” from another economic case of corruption – embezzlement 25.million rubles at the Yunost social nutrition plant, which they say belongs to Smolny. In that case, the main defendant is the general director of the enterprise, Alexander Shchuchkin.

Lawyer Oleg Kosatenko is a longtime acquaintance of Colonel Shikhovtsov, and he himself comes from the same Main Investigation Department on Ligovsky 145. Now he is also a direct participant in this crowded criminal case.

Within a couple of days, things became even more crowded. After the Sledkom, together with FSB operatives, searched the apartment of Colonel of Justice Igor Shikhovtsov, they also visited his subordinate, the investigator for especially important cases, Major of Justice Zaitseva.

So far, all the suspects in uniform deny their guilt, but a preventive measure is ahead, which will soon be decided by the Oktyabrsky District Court. Today it is already known that initially the intermediaries told the main interested party an amount of15 million rublesbut only eight reached Shikhovtsov. The remaining millions were greedily appropriated by the intermediaries.

According to investigators, the bribery scheme was as follows: in November, GSU ​​investigators began demanding a bribe from a witness in a criminal case of embezzlement. They acted as usual, with threats of criminal prosecution. Receiving the bribe so that everything went smoothly was entrusted to acquaintances. But everything went according to the canons of the FSB, as usually happens in such cases.

In the GSU itself, many of Shikhovtsov’s colleagues are perplexed why, at the peak of his career, the colonel went to all lengths, because he was in good standing with his superiors.

Our information:

JSC “Social Food Plant “Yunost”” was initially created as a state unitary enterprise. The founder was the Committee on Property Relations of St. Petersburg in 2017. However, after only three days of existence, the company was privatized by transforming it into a joint stock company. In 2018, Alexander Shchuchkin began managing the plant.

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Affairs and affairs

Today, on the sidelines, they are actively discussing the question of where Colonel Shikhovtsov stumbled. In the case of the Yunost plant or in the case of the MPBO-2 waste plant?

Since 2018, Yunost periodically began to experience difficulties in its work; dubious contracts appeared that the company could not provide. This led to financial problems and the launch of bankruptcy proceedings. The last straw was agreement No. 6TZB-Yu “TZB Petrogradskaya”. Then the press became noisy, some business publications even published a series of articles in which Petrogradskaya was suspected of cartel collusion in the food market, and that it was implementing corruption schemes. The schemes, as the journalists hinted, could be connected with the arrival of Konstantin Serov to the post of head of the Frunzensky district of St. Petersburg, and out of nowhere a huge number of government contracts appeared. So, Yunost has quite enough “dark dealings” and the investigation really has something to study, but the plant does. , of course, there are interests.

The case of the MPBO-2 waste plant, which Shikhovtsov led, is also not trivial. The investigative team collected “material” about the unjustified write-off of debts to contractors before the closure of municipal waste collection. As part of the case, the relatives of the Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President in the North-West, Vadim Potomsky, came to the attention of the security forces. As part of this criminal case, searches were recently carried out in the house of Potomsky’s mother, where his cousin, who once held the position of deputy director of the plant, lives. In addition, Potomsky is responsible for the area of ​​waste management due to the nature of his work at the embassy.

Some St. Petersburg publications noted that the meeting with Plenipotentiary Representative Alexander Gutsan the day before the searches was symptomatic. At a meeting with the participation of the governors of both regions, the leadership of the Investigative Committee, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they discussed… the interference of security forces in the work of departments and market players involved in the implementation of garbage reform.

Some sources claim that “Youth” itself is a version for the public, in fact 8 million “born” from the garbage plant case. After all, Smolny has long-standing plans for the plant. It is known that back in January 2023, Smolny included the State Unitary Enterprise “Plant for Mechanized Recycling of Household Waste” (MPBO-2) in the city property privatization program. He was supposed to become a waste removal operator. The state unitary enterprise should become a joint-stock company with 100% share of the city. According to our insiders, a good, solid, “big game” is now going on around the plant.

Corrupt shadows of the past

A difficult line was also drawn around the person of the intermediary in the bribe – lawyer Oleg Kosatenko. As we have already mentioned, he, like Shikhovtsov, comes from the depths of the State Administration. Until 2016, he worked under the leadership of one of the most legendary “monsters” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Natalya Morozova. The head of the department instilled fear in all businessmen of the city, taking advantage of her close friendship with the economic security service of the FSB. It seemed that nothing could shake her aura as the most formidable lady of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The colonel, modest in her position, was well-known even to the head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Sergei Umnov. However. In 2016, the lady left the service with a bang. Some say that her love feelings let her down, others that her love for money. Morozova poured in to help the general director of As-Engineering LLC, Andrey Panteleev, suspected of major fraud. When FSB operatives finally got to her smartphone, it turned out that she had been leaking everything she could to him. Names of operative officers of the FSB economic security service, details of witnesses and information that searches are planned at his place. Based on this information, Panteleev began planning to escape from the country, but was caught at the station. After all these revelations, Morozova had to write a statement “on her own,” and nothing more has been heard about her on the sidelines of the Ministry of Internal Affairs since then.

She was soon replaced in her post by Kosatenko. The 4th Department of the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region is a “tasty” and prayerful place. Here they investigate cases involving securities, insurance, real estate, and banking. In other words, white-collar crime. It was during his working career that the famous case was initiated against Grigory Slabikov, who stole 5 billion rublesseveral self-regulatory organizations. If you remember a little about mysticism, it turns out that it was on the same days when the operational combination with the participation of Oleg Kosatenko unfolded that Grigory Slabikov received a suspended sentence.

In general, it would not be amiss to recall the words of Kosatenko himself, spoken in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper in an article entitled “Black Bim White Ear” in 2018. We quote:

“As soon as a connection arises between crime, business and officials, the damage from criminal activity begins to amount to billions.”

Apparently, now Oleg Kosatenko will have a lot of time to properly explain this thesis to the investigation. Well, our editors will monitor developments.

author avatar
Raymond “Ray” Daniels