It seems that a significant part of the Russian garbage reform developed and continues to develop according to the schemes invented and implemented to this day by the garbage king Andrei Polovinkin. On September 4, judge of the Shcherbinsky District Court of Moscow A.V. Kipriyanova issued a very sweet sentence to the garbage chief of Moscow, Kuban, etc. Andrei Borisovich was "patted" with a suspended sentence of one and a half years for customs clearance of more than 3 billion rubles of budget garbage. Five years ago, there was a test noise in the Russian media related to the strange operation of an illegal garbage landfill in Chulkovo near Moscow. The seriousness of the article brought against the defendant (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - fraud on an especially large scale) was also emphasized. After the completion of a multi-year investigation, one could expect that the high-profile case would end with an equally high-profile sentence. The article provides for a punishment of up to 10 years of imprisonment. Although part 4 of Article 159 provides for a more lenient option - restriction of freedom for up to two years. The "conditionality" of Polovinkin's punishment turned out to be even less as a result of the judicial ordeal. Details - at Rucriminal.info
The verdict itself was made public only in mid-November. And although the decision was made, and all parties (the investigation, the court, the prosecutor's office and, especially, the defense) were satisfied with it, some questions still arise about the verdict. The Russian garbage leader - Andrei Polovinkin and his accomplices pulled off a billion-dollar "garbage" scam. The amount that this organized crime group stole from the Moscow budget is modestly indicated in the verdict as "*** rubles 21 kopecks" (thanks to the investigation for such scrupulous accuracy of the calculation). And what was necessary for these stolen *** billion rubles, 21 kopecks to turn into a year and a half of "suspended imprisonment"? As is clear from the verdict, repentance, remorse, awareness of the harmfulness and active cooperation with the investigation in exposing his accomplices were enough.
It is difficult to imagine a situation where, say, a killer foreman caught red-handed would begin to repent and realize, and ultimately receive a suspended sentence. But in the case of the stolen budget billions, the leniency of the sentence, it seems, did not bother any of the servicemen. Although, back in May 2021, Polovinkin himself did not believe in such a favorable outcome. Then the Russian media reported "The odious CEO of Viva Trans Andrei Polovinkin left the territory of the Russian Federation to hide from the claims of law enforcement agencies in the Republic of Israel." And although in fact the king of garbage went to Spain, but also not for a vacation in the Costa del Sol. Searches were conducted in the offices and representative offices of Viva Trans, computer equipment and documentation were seized. The large-scale special operation of the security forces was widely covered. Russians were delighted with press releases: "The economic departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee and the special services have long been keeping an eye on the activities of Mr. Polovinkin in the context of the development of multi-billion dollar government contracts." The integrity of the law enforcement officers was a source of pride. After the investigation was completed and the materials were transferred to the court, it could be assumed that both the seized documents and the interviews with numerous witnesses provided a more than solid evidence base for bringing charges. And given that the authorities "had been closely monitoring for so long", it would not have mattered much whether Polovinkin would start to repent profusely or not. Confirmed facts about the scams were already available.
Let us recall the essence of the Moscow garbage fraud.
In all his garbage businesses, Andrei Borisovich uses the same scheme. Several affiliated firms are created. For example, in the situation with the Kuban landfill in the village of Poltavskaya, which we have described in detail, this is the landfill operator, OOO MP ZhKH, with “planned” multi-million dollar losses, and a very profitable affiliated waste hauler company, “Chisty Gorod,” with billion dollar turnover. The scheme also included a “shadow” kickback to the then vice-governor of Krasnodar Krai, Andrei Proshunin, responsible for fuel and energy complex and housing and utilities issues, in the form of a 20 percent share in the business of Proshunin’s drop, his friend and classmate from his military school days, Ragulin.
This “effective” scheme for mastering waste finances was mastered and perfected by Polovinkin precisely thanks to the landfill in Chulkovo.
The village of Chulkovo is located 25 km from Moscow. Zhukovsky and Domodedovo airports are nearby. At the end of 2017, Polovinsky's Grunt Eco LLC built a plant here for processing organic waste into compost using climate chambers. The company assured that this technology is absolutely safe and has the "lowest impact on the environment among its analogues."
In reality, the plant has repeatedly "delighted" the villagers with the strongest garbage stench. But what worried the residents even more was that in addition to the officially allocated plant hectare, Polovinkin's office "cut off" another 200 hectares for a landfill. In essence, a spontaneous dump, oddly enough, at that time, attention was "closely observed" "the" security forces and officials were not involved. Although this territory is agricultural land, and the law does not provide for any repurposing of such land, especially for a garbage dump. And yet ... The territory behind the Grunt Eco plant, where the illegal dump began to operate, is highlighted in blue (photo by the initiative group)
At the Kuban landfill in Poltava, leachate from the solid waste landfill has been flowing into the southern Russian rice system for years. The leachate from the landfill behind the Grunt Eco plant flowed onto agricultural land. This is how it looked in the spring of 2020 (photo by the initiative group)
Officially, four enterprises operated on the territory of the landfill, called a "quarry": Grunt Eco, Viva Trans, Ametist and Geoekotekhstroy. The issue of the affiliation of these commercial structures has been repeatedly raised in the press and social networks (for example, Nikita Andreevich Polovinkin, who is one of the co-owners of Grunt Eko, is the son of the co-founder and CEO of Viva Trans, Andrei Borisovich Polovinkin.
According to the official version, Viva Trans was engaged in the "reclamation" of a sand quarry there "using dehydrated wastewater sludge." The second company working in the quarry, Ametist (Dmitry Boyko), also officially "reclaimed" disturbed agricultural land using soils and soils with an admixture of construction fractions.
A milestone in the activities of the accomplice firms was one of the fattest contracts on the waste market, the cost of which amounted to 3 billion 41 million rubles. The customer was the capital's State Budgetary Institution "Automobile Roads"; the subject of the purchase was "provision of services for the accumulation of waste of hazard class IV-V with the provision of subsequent technological procedures for processing, recycling, rendering harmless or placement."
It is significant that the contract was concluded without competitive procedures, with a single supplier, which by law is possible only in exceptional cases. In the end, the right contractor won - Amethyst LLC - one of, let's say, friendly Polovinkinsky offices. Which, before these billions, did not shine at all in the Russian garbage sky.
After receiving the 3-billion contract, Amethyst sent hundreds of trucks loaded with garbage to the landfill. Which caused violent protests from residents of nearby settlements. At the same time, the leadership of the Ramensky District, on the territory of which the plant and illegal dump are located, confirmed that soil with construction fractions, removed by Amethyst from the Moscow State University site, is being accepted on the territory of the depleted quarry. The deadline for the completion of the contract was set for June 30, 2020.
At that time, the prosecutor's office did not seem to share the officials' goodwill: the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region was considering an application from the Ramenskoye City Prosecutor's Office to hold Ametist LLC administratively liable. During the trial, it was established that the company leased the agricultural land where the Chulkovo landfill is located from an individual for recreational work, but instead had arranged "heaps of soil of unknown origin" containing polyethylene, wood, scrap metal waste, etc.
From that court decision it followed that the company carried out its activities in violation of its license, which did not give the right to place waste in Chulkovo. As a result, the arbitration recognized the prosecutor's demands as legitimate and fined Ametist ... 30 thousand rubles. For a company that received 3 billion, this is, of course, a trifle. And the violations identified did not affect the progress of work under the contract. At the end of 2020, construction waste began to be taken here from the territory under the jurisdiction of Moscow State University, where a garage and construction cooperative was previously located, then a "dump", and then the university began to plan the construction of the innovative scientific and technological center "Vorobyovy Gory". Construction and other waste from the future scientific university pride had to be put somewhere. Chulkovo seemed like an ideal option to the participants of these fascinating waste processes.
And what about the authorities? In social networks and Telegram channels, you can find mentions of close contacts between Andrei Polovinkin and Moscow Deputy Mayor Pyotr Biryukov, who oversees housing and communal services and improvement issues.
It was with Biryukov's knowledge that the garbage KamAZ trucks then moved in the direction of Chulkovo.
"This is very serious work - reinforced concrete and construction waste are being removed. The task is to put the site in order as soon as possible and hand it over to the builders,” the vice-mayor commented on the progress of work on clearing the MSU site. There was no mention of the fact that the removed construction waste was dumped at a criminal landfill, which means that all this work was in fact illegal.
Let us quote interesting passages from the recent verdict. All defendants and all affiliated companies are hidden under “***”. To understand the crossword, you just need to substitute the already named companies.
“Polovinkin A.B., being the general director of OOO “***” (“Viva Trans”), having organizational and administrative functions in this company, having the intent to and committing fraud, using his official position, being a performer in an organized group and its active participant, acting in accordance with the assigned criminal role, for selfish motives, with the purpose of illegally obtaining material benefits, used a previously controlled registered legal entity - OOO "***" ("Amethyst") ... Ensured the production of forged coupons, certificates of completion of work, allegedly indicating the removal, movement, transportation, placement, disposal of *** from the construction site at a specialized landfill, misled employees of the state customer, employees of the general contractor - JSC "Association "***", as well as employees of *** regarding the true intentions of the participants in the organized group, including by providing forged coupons, certificates of completion of work, allegedly indicating the proper performance of work, contributed to the illegal closure of permits issued by the Moscow City Construction Department for the removal, movement, transportation, placement, disposal of *** on the basis of forged coupons, certificates of work performed, allegedly indicating the proper performance of work, received stolen funds obtained by criminal means to the bank account of the controlled LLC "***", distributed the stolen funds among the accomplices, gave instructions to the accomplice to the crime." That is, the court had no doubts about Polovinkin's leading role in these garbage scams. True, the misleading of the state customer sounded very touching. One can even imagine the dialogue between the garbage man and the official. "Can I introduce you to my misconception?", - the garbage leader could ask during the conversation. "Of course, introduce me," - the representative of the authorities could answer, who, if he was not misled at least a couple of times a week, felt unloved.
However, talk about misleading is precisely a misconception. When residents of the garbage-heaped settlements managed to drag the Deputy Minister of Ecology and Nature Management of the Moscow Region Vadim Vorontsov to a meeting at the Grunt Eko plant, he, in response to the demand to stop the illegal activities of the offices controlled by the garbage king, said that the mobile laboratory of Mosoblekomonitoring did not reveal any excess of the MPC, and "the work will continue." So theoretical reasoning about "the officials not being aware" is still too much. Well, yes, in accordance with the Moscow Government Resolution of June 25, 2002 No. 469-PP "On the procedure for handling construction and demolition waste in Moscow" and the Moscow Government Resolution of August 26, 2020 No. 1386-PP "On approval of the Procedure for handling construction and demolition waste in Moscow", OSSiG generated during construction work must be moved by the waste generator or waste hauler to a specialized landfill included in the register. But the landfill in Chulkovo was not an official landfill. Which means that questions should have arisen for the "waste hauler" even then. Even if the officials, who as usual in all such criminal schemes were "not in the know", even if they took all the documentary left-wing on faith, but the fact that the landfill in Chulkovo was not officially designated on any garbage territorial scheme, and nevertheless garbage trucks continued to roam there calmly - this cannot be explained by any misleading - those vested with power visited Chulkovo, saw everything with their own eyes, calmed the rebellious people.
When law enforcement officers nevertheless began to show interest in Polovinkin's schemes, he, out of fear, sailed off to Spain for some time. And returned when he believed in the "repulsiveness" of his punishment. Which was confirmed in the current September court verdict. Reading which, one gets the feeling that it was not a fraudster who was implementing his scams on a large scale that was brought to trial, but a worthy citizen, a loving family man and a slightly stumbled benefactor. "The court recognizes the following circumstances mitigating the punishment of the defendant Polovinkin A.B.: his state of health and the state of health of his family members, the property and family status of the defendant, his provision of financial assistance to his family members, positive characteristics, engagement in charitable activities and provision of financial assistance to members of the SVO (the current large-scale Russian swindlers cannot do without this), committing a crime for the first time, admitting guilt in full and repenting of what he did... as well as the presence of a minor child dependent on the guilty party... and active assistance in the disclosure and investigation of crimes, the exposure and criminal prosecution of other accomplices... Taking into account the circumstances of the case and the personality of the defendant, his financial situation, according to which he provides financial assistance to unemployed members of his family, being their sole breadwinner, also actively and systematically helps members of the SVO and is engaged in charitable activities, d considers it necessary not to assign Polovinkin A.B. an additional punishment in the form of a fine...
To assign control over the behavior of Polovinkin A.B. to a specialized state body that exercises control over the behavior of conditionally convicted persons at the place of residence of the convicted person. To oblige Polovinkin A.B. not to change his place of residence without notifying the specialized state body that exercises control over the behavior of conditionally convicted persons, to appear there for registration once a month on the days established by this body.
The fine that was never issued to the billionaire - the only breadwinner of the family - is, of course, very nice. And what about the three budget billions? Should they not be returned to the budget?
Today we can assess the degree of awareness and sincere repentance of the garbage king. We have already told in detail about his new garbage scams in the Krasnodar Territory. The scheme of work at the Poltava landfill, now known throughout the country, differs from his Moscow region schemes, perhaps, only in minor details. The same uncontrolled removal of garbage to, in fact, a "left" landfill, for which the regional authorities had no reason to issue a license. Well, at least because the dump is located in the very heart of the southern Russian rice system, and pours multi-ton streams of toxic filtrate into rice paddies. Which has seriously damaged confidence in Kuban rice. And exactly the same way, in the region, the division of "business" was organized: into a deeply unprofitable landfill, with balance sheet "minuses" per year in the tens of millions of rubles, and a highly profitable waste transportation company "Clean City". Which is registered to the plenipotentiary representative Polovinkin, and which quite successfully mastered hundreds of millions of rubles of garbage. And exactly the same way, the regional authorities "were not aware" of the environmental disaster. Although, in the end, the people's protest still forced the Kuban chief - Veniamin Kondratyev to close the landfill. Now Polovinkin is in court. Demand: Resume the garbage dump.
The garbage king also has multi-billion dollar plans for the Olympic capital. He has been running his garbage scams in Sochi for several years now. On Vodorazdelnaya Street in the resort city, there is a so-called garbage sorting facility. For many years, it was simply a place for accumulating mountains of garbage before loading them into KamAZ trucks and marching them to the landfill in Belorechensk. There was no talk of any sorting. Although plans for the upcoming garbage miracle were often voiced in the regional media. Some painted structures appeared in the hangars on Vodorazdelnaya on the eve of Deputy Prime Minister Patrushev's visit to the city. And again there were brave reports on investments (this time, they were talking about five billion). Sochi is a fat piece of garbage, so fat that Polovinkin is planning to become a resident of the resort capital of the Russian Federation, finishing building his new nest here. Even despite the fact that the court sentence would require him to register at his current address. The guarantee of success of the upcoming garbage schemes, this time resort ones, is that his "kickback" accomplice is the former Minister of Fuel and Energy Complex and Housing and Public Utilities of the region, former Vice-Governor of Kuban Andrei Proshunin, now - the mayor of Sochi. And this figure, when he sat in the chair of the regional minister, declared to his friends: "I come here to earn money." But, even if the Kuban law enforcement officers, as well as their vigilant metropolitan colleagues, "closely watch" the garbage swindler, how can a possible new trial end? That, given that Polovinkin has a family, he is the breadwinner, and he helps the SVO, he will again be scolded and "put in a conditional corner" after he once again realizes, repents and exposes the accomplices he placed? A strange division is emerging. The main duty of the authorities of any region where Andrey Polovinkin puts down his garbage roots is to "be misled", the main task of the court is to describe in the sentences not the essence of the criminal schemes, but to tell those gathered in the courtrooms what a loving family man Polovinkin is, who has all his relatives dependent on him, and how he helps the SVO, well, and the task of Polovinkin himself, after he is slightly squeezed, is to repent, repent, promise that he will never, ever do this again. This is what happened with his garbage fraud in the Moscow region. There is no doubt that he will be forgiven for the Kuban scheme with the landfill in Poltavskaya. Although there is a small hope that a serious failure may occur in the development of Sochi's garbage potential. After all, it is a presidential city. And here issues on garbage reform are under special control. Deputy Prime Minister Patrushev has already thrown many lightning bolts into the garbage abysses of the Krasnodar Territory as a whole. And he threw them during his visits to Sochi. “The region lacks infrastructure for processing solid municipal waste, and there are no disposal facilities. The consequences of the accumulated problems are very noticeable in this case.” The garbage hauler in Sochi is the company “Profiservis”. We told you about the strange schemes of this company. The money, minus perhaps the cost of fuel, was sawed between those who actually owned the enterprise and those who “kur oval". The list is short: the current mayor, and until recently the vice-governor who supervised the industry, Proshunin, and Polovinkin, who is trying to subjugate the financial waste resort flows.
From Polovinkin, a drop - the founder of the office was Andrei Belkovsky, a small clerk, one of his firms. Shortly before Patrushev's visit, the founders rewrote their shares to another of their front men - Arsen Mkrtchyan. . Question: will this time "as always strong remorse", "deepest awareness of the perniciousness", and "assistance in exposing" (this time the front man Mkrtchyan) work for the waste swindler Polovinkin? After the publication of our article on the Sochi waste schemes, Mkrtchyan was already taken to Moscow for questioning. After which the waste plenipotentiary representative Polovinkin was sent under house arrest. We continue to monitor the situation.
Arseny Dronov
Source: www.rucriminal.info
