How Russian officials get rid of business and real estate abroad

Declaration of income for 2016 will be published in the near future. In order not to violate the law, officials divorced spouses, they sell the business partners and family or transfer assets in trust.
11.04.2017
Forbes
Origin source
In the country there are at least two stable groups of people who have learned to hide their business professionally. Now this skill is actively mastered by the businessmen caught under the sanctions, and as for the politicians, they had mastered it virtuously before. The arsenal of receptions is small: fictitious divorce, rewriting assets to partners and relatives, transfer of assets to trust management. Now, when it's time to file a declaration for the past year, the entire list will be used.

In recent years, laws have been passed obliging officials to report on incomes and large expenses, property of spouses and minor children, as well as prohibiting officials from doing business and have accounts abroad. In 2013, the commission of the State Duma on ethics did not exclude that deputies could issue fictitious divorces with their spouses in order to conceal data on incomes and property. In April last year it became known that 107 out of 450 State Duma deputies are not registered marriages.

It is practically impossible to prove the fictitiousness of the official's divorce. But civil servants find other ways to get rid of business or to evade suspicions of illegal enrichment and conflict of interests. Examples of how officials get rid of assets - in the gallery Forbes.

Maxim and Tatiana Lixutovy, divorce

Deputy Mayor of Moscow Maxim Liksutov was on the list of the richest businessmen of the country according to Forbes version until 2013, then his fortune was estimated at $ 650 million.

Lixutov in December 2012 claimed that, having become an official of the Moscow government, he sold his own packages of Aeroexpress (12.5%), Transmashholding (8%) and Transgroup (25%). In particular, the shares of Transmashholding were sold to its partners - Iskander Makhmudov, Andrei Bokarev and several other managers. In the ownership of the family Lixutov, he said, there was only a restaurant in Tallinn.

In 2014, oppositionist Alexei Navalny accused Tatyana Lixutova of her husband of illegally holding an official for his wife's foreign assets. The materials of the investigation testify that after the entry into force of the ban for state employees on possession of foreign assets, Lixutov rewrote his share in Transgroup Invest AS for his wife. Through this Estonian firm, the Lixutovs are allegedly controlled by Delta-Trans-Invest LLC and Transgroup AS, which own Aeroexpress, RailTransauto, City Urban Highway Trolley Transportation System and other companies.

However, it turned out that the marriage of Tatiana and Maxim Lixutovy disintegrated just six days after the deputy mayor handed over foreign assets to his wife. Formally, the former wife of an official, Estonian citizen, Tatyana Lixutova, has the full right to own business and accounts abroad.

"Church marriage" of Zhirinovsky

In 2013, the deputy from the "Fair Russia" Ilya Ponomarev accused the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky in a fictious divorce from Galina Lebedeva and appealed to the State Duma's commission on income with a demand to check whether the deputy is trying to hide his real incomes.

"I married in the last century - January 6, 1971. Divorced - November 29, 1978. What kind of declarations? We were all miserable officials, "Zhirinovsky said. According to him, he is with his wife in a church marriage and that he "decides who to consider his wife." The LDPR leader suggested comparing his income statement with the declarations of other deputies and making sure that more property was written in his name than in the name of the civil wife. He assured me that I did not copy anything to her.

Two divorces Yarovoy

In 2016, it became known about the second divorce of one of the most famous women deputies - Irina Yarovoy. Answered in the parliament of the sixth convocation for the committee on security and anti-corruption, Yarovaya was married twice, both times for businessmen.

The edition of The New Times in 2013 found documents showing that Irina Yarovaya lives in the elite complex "Tverskaya Plaza" in the center of Moscow, in an apartment not listed in the declaration of the deputy and her husband and acquired for incomes of unknown origin.

The State Duma revenue commission said that the apartment was bought before the law came into force, which obliges them to declare the property of the children of parliamentarians. Moreover, the first husband of the deputy, Alexander Yarovoi, gave the elite dwelling to the daughter of Yarovaya, an adult. Thus, claims for the origin of expensive real estate were dropped. About the second husband of deputy Viktor Alekseenko it is known only that he was a co-owner of one of the Kamchatka fish factories and a deputy of the Council of People's Deputies of the Kamchatka region in the same years as Yarovaya.

Nikolay and Nina Bortsov, divorce

Deputy Nikolai Bortsov, since 1981, led the cannery "Lebedyansky", then became its shareholder. In 2008, PepsiCo bought 75.5% of shares of Lebedyansky from the main shareholders for $ 1.36 billion. The transaction did not include JSC Progress, a unit for the production of baby food (Frutonyania) and drinking water (Lipetsk Pump Room ).

With his wife Nina, co-owner of "Progress", Bortsov divorced in 2013. In 2012, the deputy's wife earned 187.3 million rubles, while the parliamentarian himself - 970 million rubles. By the end of 2015, Bortsov's incomes were somewhat more modest - about 799 million rubles.

Isayeva Pilgrimage Hotel

In 2012, deputy Andrei Isaev and his wife Alina Dalskaya discovered an undeclared hotel on their own plot of 2,600 square meters. M in Germany. Ilya Ponomarev and Dmitry Gudkov suspected the deputy in the management of the hotel, while the law already forbade business to officials.

"There my wife has a site on which only two objects are the pilgrim center and the temple of the holy apostle Thomas ... This site is necessary in order to support the activities of the pilgrim center and the temple. We consider it necessary to carry information about Orthodoxy to the West and to carry information about what the West really represents for the Orthodox public. Pilgrim center, where pilgrims can come ... to bow to the Chiton of Christ, to bow to the head of St. Helena, to get acquainted with our Orthodox shrines that are there in the West. In order for this to happen, there it was necessary to preserve this piece of land. Therefore, it so happened that my wife, participating in this project, received a share, "- explained Isayev.

He promised not to participate in business management, even formally. The deputy also noted that he and his wife are ready and completely get rid of him if the law prohibits spouses of officials to have assets abroad. Such a law was adopted, but by that time the pair had dispersed.

Spanish Resnick Affairs

In 2008, MP Vladislav Reznik became a participant in a scandal. In his home in Mallorca, Spain, local police searched the Troika operation against Russian organized crime. Colleagues of the deputy for "United Russia" called the search a provocation.

In March 2016, Reznik was declared an international wanted list by the Interpol line at the request of Spain. He was suspected of money laundering, but the warrant for the arrest was eventually canceled. Also, law enforcement agencies were interested in the spouse of the Russian parliamentarian - Diana Gindin. Following the results of 2015, the wife disappeared from Reznik's declaration, the divorce was officially formalized. Together with her, the deputy lost an apartment of 224 square meters. M in the US, as well as a spouse's income of 75 million rubles. The idle deputy earned five times less than in 2014 (72.9 million rubles against 375.2 million rubles).

The wrench of Andrei Makarov

Head of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes Andrei Makarov divorced his wife Julia in 2014. According to the declaration for 2013, the wife earned ten times more than a deputy - 99 million rubles a year, against 9.5 million rubles.

After the divorce, she received a house in Spain, five plots of land, a house in Russia with an area of 746 square meters. Meters, an apartment of 190.7 square meters. M and car Lexus.

Skoch - from son to father

The partner of the billionaire Alisher Usmanov, State Duma deputy Andrei Skoch (the state of $ 5.3 billion for 2016) transferred assets to the management of his father Vladimir Skoch. Pensioner formally owns a share in USM Holdings (30%), a stake in the airport Vnukovo.

Moreover, formally having got rid of business, the billionaire became one of the advocates of corruption. It was Skoch in 2012 introduced a bill to the parliament, which obliges officials to report not only on income, but also on large expenditures. In the Kremlin, then, the billionaire's legislative move was cool. But in the end, the corresponding law was still passed.

Petrov - from father to son

State Duma deputy Sergei Petrov decided that the future for the younger generation and passed the business to one of the sons. Since 2015, the only beneficiary of the Rolf group is the younger son of its founder, Alexander, follows from the statements of Rolf and MS Bank Rus, in which 15% belongs to Rolf.

Sablin Palace on Rublevka

United Russia deputy Dmitry Sablin, a native of the team of the former Moscow region governor Boris Gromov and one of the region's largest landowners in 2013, told how he transferred the construction business to trust management.

In 2016, Sablin again became the object of close media attention because of an investigation according to which Sablin allegedly enjoys kinship ties with the leadership of the Moscow region and is building a house on Rublyovskoye highway, the cost of which does not match his declared income.

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"The house is being built not for one year, and so the situation is built that the 2 million rubles that are indicated (in the declaration) are shown directly from my salary. If you look at my wife's income for this period of time, it's hundreds of millions of rubles, "Sablin said. He also denied the information that his wife is the niece of the former Moscow region governor Boris Gromov.

Sablin's wife Alla owns shares in a dozen Moscow and Moscow region companies that deal with development, real estate operations, telecommunications. Among its assets there is even the kynological center "Ataman" with a veterinary clinic in Balashikha.