Boris Mazo escaped from the Russian prison

Ex-head of the Department of Property Management and Investment Policy of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation Boris Mazo decided not to return to the SIZO on a new charge of embezzling 450 million rubles in the repair of the State Hermitage. A fugitive official will be looking abroad.
29.05.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
In the case of fraud for 450 million rubles. during the construction of the State Hermitage Museum, the TFR announced the search for ex-head of the property management and investment policy department of the Ministry of Culture, Boris Mazo. In the near future, an ex-official who is abroad, obviously, will be arrested in absentia by a court, and his search will be international. The lawyers of the suspect assert that they did not officially inform about their claims. According to their version, Mr. Mazo is on treatment.

According to a Kommersant source close to the Russian Investigative Committee, shortly after the institution of a criminal case on a particularly large fraud (Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code), investigators and FSB officers who detained the investigators searched the house of Boris Mazo, did not find. As a result, the accusations were brought against the former Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov, whom the investigation considers the organizer of the fraud, and also the owner of the Rospan group, Nikita Kolesnikov, whose enterprises participated in the construction of the Hermitage's facilities. Both were arrested by decisions of the Basmanny District Court and sent to the remand prison. At the same time, Mr. Mazo, the source of Kommersant asserts, the investigation announced in the federal wanted list, which in the near future should become international. In any case, the CRA is already preparing an appeal to the court to arrest the alleged accomplice of the theft.

Boris Mazo headed the profile department of property management and investment policy (now the investment and property department) at the Ministry of Finance, which is responsible for capital construction, reconstruction and restoration in the ministry, including for the development of investment projects, the formation and control of state programs, in which The federal budget allocates funding for specific facilities, as well as monitoring subordinate organizations for the use of real estate. Despite the fact that the state customer of the construction of the storage facility and the SuperCube acted directly from the Hermitage, and not from the Ministry of Culture, it was from the heads of the ministry that the allocation of funds to this multibillion-dollar facility depended, which allowed Boris Mazo and his curator in the ministry Grigory Pirumov to influence the conditions for holding competitive procedures and ensuring victory for the right contractors. In particular, in 2013, when the Hermitage for the first time publicly presented the project of "Supercub" Rem Koolhaas, it was Mr. Mazo, who replaced the promoted director and appointed Deputy Minister Grigory Pirumov, as instructed by the Ministry of Culture to implement the state program "Development of Culture and Tourism at the 2013-2020. " After that, the Hermitage agreed with the previously won tender for the design of the third stage of the storage facility under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture of the State Unitary Enterprise "Central Research and Restoration Production Workshops" on termination of the contract and announced a new contest, writing in the qualification requirements the recommendation "to attract partners with experience in developing modern architectural concepts on foreign objects storages and museums ", which made it possible to attract the star of world architecture Rem Koolhaas to the project. However, back in 2013, the project had to be cheaper due to the intervention of the Accounting Chamber, refusing to place the conference hall on the air bridge, and to facilitate the construction.

The former deputy director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Novikov, signed the bidding documents and contracts for this and other construction projects signed by the former deputy director of the Hermitage, who was arrested on another hermitage case (on the restoration of the historic Reserve House in the main complex of the museum buildings). At the same time, his son Artem Novikov held the post of deputy Boris Mazo in the investment property department, he also headed the Russian Association of Restorers. Mr. Novikov Jr. also figured in a number of investigative measures, including he was detained by the FSB in March 2017 at the workplace in the Ministry of Education, after which he was fired.

In turn, Mr. Mazo and Grigory Pirumov before the joint work in the Ministry could establish close career ties: Boris Mazo headed in the mid-2000s JSC Moszhilregistration, when the future deputy minister was the head of the housing program of the Department of Extrabudgetary Moscow Construction Policy and specialized in Moscow on business with real estate (in particular, was the founder of the Criminal Code "Russian House of Real Estate").

Lawyer Vladislav Musiyaka, who represented Mr. Mazo's interests in the first case of restorers, told Kommersant that he was not called to the investigator for a new case, so he does not know anything about the presentation of the absentee charge and the search for the ex-official. According to the lawyer, his client is on treatment.

Note that in the first case, Mr Pirumov and Mazo received a year and a half imprisonment, but were released from punishment, since they served him under investigation. In turn, Nikita Kolesnikov, who testified against them, received five years probation.

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