A representative of the RF Prosecutor General’s Office told the Krasnogorsky City Court of the Moscow Region yesterday how Alexander Shestun, the former head of the Serpukhov District, who officially declared his income of 16 million rubles with his wife, won the state of 10 billion.

The meeting on the suit of the Prosecutor General’s Office, in which it demands that the undeclared property of Alexander Shestun and his proxies be transferred to the sum of 10 billion rubles, began with the removal of ex-official judge Svetlana Potapova. According to Mr. Shestun, who participated in the process through videoconference, she allegedly illegally prevented him from participating in civil proceedings. After Alexander Shestun made several more petitions, which the judge also rejected, he began to comment on these decisions. Mr. Shestun did not react to the comments of Judge Potapova, and then she ordered to break the connection with the SIZO. We also note that due to illness, the defender of the accused by the Investigative Committee of Russia (TFR) of accepting bribes and fraud on a large scale (Art. 290 and 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), legalizing money received as a result of the crime (part 4 of article 174.1), and illegal business activities (article 289 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Stepan Tyukavkin, a senior prosecutor at the supervisory office for investigating particularly important cases of the Prosecutor General’s Office, began his presentation with figures that should have shown the inconsistency of Alexander Shestun’s arguments that he had billions in assets long before he became an official. According to the representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the study of Mr. Shestun’s property status, who stated that he was “the largest entrepreneur in the Serpukhov District”, showed that he couldn’t even earn a few million rubles honestly. Mr. Tyukavkin said that the defendant began his labor activity in 1983 as an assistant to the master of the weaving workshop of the Red Textile factory. In 1991 he was engaged in retail trade in building materials, which did not bring any special income. For example, the Prosecutor General’s Office requested Mr. Shestun in the Inter-District Inspectorate on Serpukhov’s declaration, which he personally filled out in the 1990s, including 1995 and 1996. According to them, Alexander Shestun declared the expenses that his income had reduced to zero at that time. From the information requested by the FTS, the supervisory authority found out that in 2000–2003, the income of the entrepreneur Shestun was only 145 thousand rubles. At the time, the property of the future head of the district was an old Volvo and Zhiguli, as well as a land plot of 4.7 weave and a small shop.

According to Stepan Tyukavkin, dramatic changes in the life of Alexander Shestun began to occur since 2003, when he headed the Serpukhov district. Up to his arrest in 2018, the ex-official bought himself “no less” 771 properties with a total cadastral value of 2.56 billion rubles, of which 654 are land plots in the Serpukhov district. Their total area exceeded 13.8 million square meters. m, or 1300 hectares. In addition, the official won 43 expensive cars, motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles and other prestigious brands worth more than 49.9 million rubles. At the same time, as the representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office noted, “in order to give visibility that the expenses correspond to the income received when acquiring expensive property, its value was deliberately and multiply underestimated”.

Further, Mr. Tyukavkin described the schemes according to which the property actually owned by Alexander Shestun was registered with relatives, friends and proxies, as well as affiliated companies. From the figures cited by the representative of the supervisory authority, most of the real estate - 315 objects worth almost 300 million rubles - was recorded for his longtime business partner and friend, local deputy Boris Krivodubsky (wanted) and his spouse. Part of the property of Mr. Shestun was recorded on his mother, father-in-law and mother-in-law, childhood friends, realtors and even movers of the Bravo store, which belonged to his friends. At the same time, as the prosecutor stated, many of them testified during the investigation that the owners of the property are only nominally, but in fact it belongs to the former head of the district. Their consent to the registration actions of the defendants, as follows from the materials of the case, was given, also because of the danger of losing their job in case of refusal.

At least another 149 properties with a cadastral value of more than 1 billion rubles, according to Stepan Tyukavkin, were registered by several dozen commercial firms whose owners were also controlled by the accused Shestun. In particular, the representative of the prosecutor's office noted, Alexander Shestun "is the actual owner of the park-hotel" Drakino ", located in the village of Serpukhov district of the same name and registered at Krugosvet LLC, as well as at the recreation center" Bear lair ", located in Priluki village of the same district and owned by LLC "Vinter" ". Land plots and real estate were transferred from municipal to private property through auctions and gift agreements.

Similarly, the numerous fleet of Mr. Shestun was registered. In court, Stepan Tyukavkin brought the testimony of a certain Pavlov, a childhood friend of the accused, to whom the Mercedes-Benz S500 4MATIC was issued in 2008. “Shestun explained his request by the fact that he could not officially afford to buy such an expensive car,” said Mr. Tyukavkin. According to him, several more cars were issued to the mother of Alexander Shestun, “who didn’t even have a driver’s license”.

The representative of the prosecutor's office said that in total for 15 years, which Mr. Shestun headed the district, together with his wife, he declared income of only 16 million rubles. Comparing these figures with Mr. Shestun's expenses, the supervisor concluded that there was an obvious “inconsistency of expenses” with the income received not only by Alexander Shestun himself, but also by 35 respondents in his case.

At the same time, the official representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office Alexander Kurennoy in the departmental program “Ether”, dedicated to the case of the former district head, referring to the testimony of the witness, noted that there was so much cash in Mr. Shestun’s turn and his proxies that they were dragged by boxes and bags. On the account of the official, there were only 3 million rubles.