On Wednesday, April 3, officers of the FSB Administration for the Crimea and Sevastopol reported the arrest of the head of Evpatoria, Andrei Filonov. He is suspected of abuse of office. Details of the criminal case have not been disclosed. The head of the Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, said that investigative measures were aimed at preventing the embezzlement of budget funds. The detained mayor of Evpatoria has been one of the main characters of local media publications for several years now. Journalists wrote about the close ties of the mayor with a large and successful entrepreneur - Yevgeny Pronenko. He is the father of the civic wife of Filonov, Irina Makarevich.

Four years of Filonov

Andrei Filonov was appointed head of the Evpatoria administration six months after the peninsula changed its nationality from Ukraine to Russia, in November 2014. In the autumn of 2018, a special commission of the city council, at the request of the prosecutor's office, raised the issue of the dismissal of the mayor. During these four years, as local media write, Andrei Filonov managed to do a lot, but not always this activity was directed towards the benefit of society.

Filonov himself explained his dismissal from RIA Novosti: he signed a decree appointing the head of one of the municipal enterprises of Yevpatoria to the position of the father of his civil wife, with whom he did not have a marriage. “I, as mayor, sign a document that has passed all approvals, including on conflicts of interest and anti-corruption expertise. And if there was a conflict of interest, I should have written a statement to the personnel department, and this order would be signed by the deputy. ”

Dairy business

Andrei Filonov's civil wife - Irina Makarevich. In turn, the local press calls Yevgeny Pronenko “the father-in-law”. According to the SPARK-Interfax database, the man is a co-owner of three enterprises: Megatrade-Yug DC, Megatrade, and Trade Plus. By the standards of the peninsula is a big business. The revenue of one “Megatrade-South” (engaged in dairy products) for 2017 amounted to more than 660 million rubles.

In addition to the “father-in-law” Pronenko (his share in the company is 58%), Viktoria Makarevich’s mother-in-law Filonov is also on the list of founders of this company (19%).

“Megatrade-South” is first of all the Saki dairy plant. In Ukrainian times, he had a big competitor on the peninsula - Krymmoloko. But then he was gone.

“I see no prospects for resuscitation of the existing dairy plant in Evpatoria. This is no longer a dairy plant, but simply private property in the center of the city. How the owners will develop it, even they do not know yet. A plant in the city center will not be accurate, ”the media head of the Yevpatoria administration said in 2016.

Mansion for "mother-in-law"

In addition to Andrei Filonov, the “mother-in-law” (mother of a common-law wife) mayor - Viktoria Makarevich could also be involved in the criminal case in 2016. According to the Evpatoriya Courier newspaper, after the reunification of the Crimea with Russia, it declared its rights to the mansion, which had a Grant Bank office in Ukrainian times.

As proof of her claims, Viktoria Makarevich, according to journalists, presented a contract of sale 15 years ago, which for some reason did not consider it necessary to make public before. At this moment, the “mother-in-law” Filonov had a conflict with a certain Gennady Ivanov, who also had a sale and purchase agreement in his hands, but more relevant. Ivanov acquired a mansion from the Bank "Grant".

Finding that he was not the only owner, the man filed a statement with the police about fraud, but did not succeed in initiating a criminal case. However, he managed to defend his interests in civil proceedings: the court upheld his claim to Victoria Makarevich and recognized Ivanov’s rights to the mansion.

Evpatoriya Courier linked the old contract presented by Filonov's mother-in-law to the activities of the First Evpatoria Commodity Exchange, which issued such documents. According to journalists, in Yevpatoria, legalization of illegal real estate transactions through fictitious trading on this exchange was widely practiced in its time.

Home for "test"

Local journalists paid attention to the legal dispute that began in 2016 between the DC “Megatrade-South” and the Department of Property and Land Relations of the city administration of Yevpatoria. The company challenged the real estate sale and purchase agreement with an area of ​​717.7 square meters, located at the address: Evpatoria, Pobedy Avenue, 44.

On June 27, 2018, the Arbitration Court of the Republic of Crimea ruled in favor of Andrei Filonov’s “father-in-law” company. The Crimean portal Informer writes that the city lost as much as 18 million to Megatrade, giving up the premises for 27 instead of 45 million.