Law enforcement officers raided the Moscow Office of the Federal Tax Service, several city tax offices and an apartment Deputy Head of the Federal Tax Service Olga Chernichuk.

Chernichuk Olga Vladimirovna

Deputy Head of the Federal Tax Service of Russia for Moscow Chernichuk Olga Vladimirovna - Advisor to the State Civil Service of the Russian Federation, 1st class. Born on December 3, 1966 in Moscow.

In 1990 she graduated from the Moscow Financial Institute.

She began her career in 1985. In the tax service since 1990. Before being appointed to the position of Deputy Head of the Federal Tax Service of Russia for Moscow in July 2010, she held the position of Head of the Interdistrict Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service No. 48 for Moscow.

Awarded the medal "In memory of the 850th anniversary of Moscow." Has the distinction "Honorary Worker of the Federal Tax Service of Russia".

Searches and seizure of documents in the building of the capital's Federal Tax Service department at the address: Bolshaya Tulskaya Street, 15, began at about 9 am, RIA Novosti reports. They are carried out by employees of the Main Investigation Department of the RF Investigative Committee for Moscow. Around the same time, investigators came to tax office No. 28 and to the apartment of the deputy head of the department, Olga Chernichuk, agency sources add.

In the Department of Economic Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, department employees provide operational support for searches, but the Investigation Committee is in charge of the investigation.

Chernichuk oversaw the issues of value added tax reimbursement; fraud in this area most likely became the reason for the searches. “Operational and investigative actions are being carried out as part of a criminal case of large-scale theft through illegal VAT refund schemes,” Interfax quotes its source in law enforcement agencies as saying. According to the agency, the searches also affected tax office No. 28, and possibly a number of others.

According to an eyewitness, “about 10 operational officers” entered the building of the 28th Inspectorate at the address: Shvernika Street, building 7, building 1, “without show, modestly.” According to the source, investigative actions will most likely drag on for a long time.

In addition, before searching Chernichuk’s home, the police detained her personal driver in order to prevent her from leaving the place of investigation, after which the official herself was detained. According to unofficial data, in January 2011, three heads of Federal Tax Service No. 28 resigned due to the pressure Chernichuk put on them.

The criminal case in which the searches are being carried out, according to some sources, is related to the theft of budget funds under the guise of VAT reimbursement from the budget. We may be talking about an attempted theft of 2 billion rubles from one of the St. Petersburg companies - ES-Kontraktstroy LLC, which was associated with the pulp and paper mill OJSC Vyborg Cellulose, located in the Leningrad region.

According to the source, searches are being conducted in the offices of both companies. The Vyborg Cellulose reception office did not confirm the information about the searches.

The Vyborskaya Pulp pulp and paper mill has become the object of interest of investigators in connection with billions of dollars in thefts. Seven people working in the 28th Tax Inspectorate in the South-Western Administrative District of Moscow were included in the list of 60 Russian officials who are prohibited from entering the European Union and the United States (the so-called “Magnitsky list”). In addition, there you can find the names of employees of the Federal Tax Service Inspectorate No. 25.

Vladislav Trifonov, Petr Netreba

Yesterday, employees of the Main Investigation Department (GID) of the ICR in Moscow, with the support of FSB operatives, simultaneously conducted searches and seizures of documents in the central office of the capital's Federal Tax Service, the house and dacha of the deputy head of this department, Olga Chernichuk, as well as in St. Petersburg and the Vyborg district of the Leningrad region. Investigative actions were carried out as part of a criminal investigation into an attempt by ES-Kontraktstroy LLC to illegally receive more than 1.87 billion rubles from the budget. under the guise of VAT refund. Ms. Chernichuk, who, according to witness testimony, literally forced her subordinates to resolve the issue of payments to ES-Kontraktstroy, has not yet been taken into custody. Two managers of this LLC were detained.

In the building of the Federal Tax Service on Bolshaya Tulskaya, 15, about three dozen employees of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for Moscow and FSB operatives appeared at nine in the morning. Employees of the operational investigation team searched the offices of the deputy head of this department, Olga Chernichuk, and also seized numerous documents related to VAT refunds. “The visit of the investigators did not affect the work of the inspectorate, no one broke into my office, and I calmly moved around the building in which there were no machine gunners. Everything happened very correctly,” Olga Tarchevskaya, a representative of the Federal Tax Service, told Kommersant, refusing to comment in detail on the actions security forces. At the same time, investigative actions were carried out in the tax inspectorate building No. 28 on Shvernika Street, where documents were seized, as well as in Ms. Chernichuk’s apartment on Sokolnicheskaya Slobodka Street and in her country house located in the Vyalki dacha community (Ramensky district of the Moscow region). Investigators also tried to search the apartment on Khalturinskaya Street, where an officially unemployed person lives, but he has a lot to decide in the tax sphere. Alexander Udodov, but he was not at home. As it turned out, on April 2, Mr. Udodov, who plays together with the head of the Federal Tax Service Mikhail Mishustin for the amateur hockey club “Sportima” of the Russian government, flew from Moscow to Munich. Meanwhile, the investigation suspects that Mr. Udodov was an accomplice, and possibly one of the organizers, of VAT fraud.

Meanwhile, operational and investigative actions were carried out not only in Moscow, but also in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. Moreover, the head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Itkin, himself went there. Operatives and investigators under his leadership carried out seizures at the Federal Tax Service in the Vyborg district of the Leningrad region, as well as at the office of Vyborg Cellulose OJSC.

OJSC "Vyborg Cellulose" was created on the basis of a pulp and paper mill built in the 1920s by the Finnish company Hackman & K. It is a city-forming enterprise in the village of Sovetsky, Leningrad Region. Production capacity - 144 thousand tons of paper products per year. Revenue in 2010 - 2.6 billion rubles, net profit - 181.7 million rubles. According to the SPARK database, the only shareholder is the offshore company Alcem UK Ltd. According to media reports, it is controlled by a former senator Alexander Sabadash.

[Fontanka.Ru, 04/06/2011, “St. Petersburg taxes were found in the Moscow Federal Tax Service”: The shareholders of Vyborg Cellulose are the company’s managers and the offshore structure Vyborg Limited, which, according to Fontanka, belongs to the authoritative St. Petersburg businessman Alexander Sabadash.
Businessman Sabadash became famous precisely after the storming of the Vyborg Pulp and Paper Mill. In 1998, he acquired the plant together with St. Petersburg entrepreneur Mikhail Schlossberg. Due to the resistance of the workers, the new owners were not immediately able to enter the enterprise. After several attempts to take control of the pulp and paper mill, Sabadash decided to storm and on October 15, 1999, broke into the enterprise with soldiers of the Typhoon special forces. However, it was not possible to take the plant by force - the workers fought off the special forces soldiers and captured Sabadash himself. They forcibly locked him in the back room, took away his mobile phone and broke his rib. The plant surrendered only in January 2000. They say that Sabadash paid the workers 1 thousand rubles, after which they themselves opened the gates for him. The assets of Vyborg Pulp and Paper Mill were transferred to Vyborg Pulp.
In the late 1990s, Sabadash, Mikhail Shlossberg and Alexey Shmargunenko (the latter co-owners of the Volkhov and Volgograd aluminum smelters, the Syassky pulp and paper mill and the Pikalevsky Alumina plant) were partners. However, in 2001 they could not divide the business, and their paths diverged. In 2001, the Schlossberg-Shmargunenko group was able to transfer Sabadash’s shares to its structures. But in the summer of 2001, Sabadash got the court to cancel these transactions, after which the bailiffs removed Alexei Shmargunenko, general director of the pulp and paper mill, from his post, and power at the plant passed to Sabadash. - Insert K.ru]

According to Kommersant, the criminal case, within the framework of which searches and seizures took place, was initiated on December 8 last year by the investigative department of the Investigative Committee for the South-Western District of Moscow under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Fraud on an especially large scale”) “in relation to unidentified persons.” Initially, the case involved only one episode related to the illegal reimbursement of VAT to a certain Brisstyle LLC. But when, during the investigation, investigators were able to identify possible assistance in illegal VAT refunds by tax officials themselves, the case was transferred to the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for Moscow. Now there are already 12 episodes in the case, but the main one is related to the attempt to obtain ES-Kontraktstroy LLC 1.87 billion rubles. from the budget.

As the Investigative Committee said, on September 28 last year, this little-known Arkhangelsk company registered for tax purposes with the Moscow Federal Tax Service Inspectorate No. 28. And just a few days later, according to the investigation, “for the purpose of stealing funds from the budget,” LLC director Roman Temkin and financial director Elena Bevza submitted a declaration to the inspectorate, which was clarified on November 10. Based on the submitted documents, the company demanded a return of 1.87 billion rubles from the budget. for work allegedly performed by her in the third quarter of last year in the Leningrad region at Vyborg Cellulose OJSC. In accordance with Art. 171 of the Tax Code, if a product with VAT was purchased, but after the expiration of the tax period (quarter) was not sold, the taxpayer has the right to claim a VAT deduction.

The company assured the tax authorities that it was modernizing paper production equipment at the OJSC, and also installed and installed equipment for the production of pellets - these are compressed wood pellets that are used as fuel. OJSC Vyborg Cellulose, having received a loan of €30 million from VTB France in 2007, announced the construction of the world's largest pellet production facility with a capacity of 1 million tons. Production, however, as noted by the Investigative Committee, has not yet been launched and is still operating in test mode. However, according to witnesses in the criminal case, Olga Chernichuk decided to lobby for the issue of VAT refund.

“Chernichuk told me that the tax inspectorate I head has registered the taxpayer LLC ES-Kontraktstroy, that this organization is a very large taxpayer, is constructing a large paper pulp plant, and the construction is personally supervised by the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. She asked me take this taxpayer very seriously, including when he applies for a VAT refund from the Russian budget,” stated, in particular, the former head of the Federal Tax Service No. 28 inspection, Olga Stepanova.

["RBC daily", 04/07/2011, "A company from Arkhangelsk brought security officials to the famous tax office No. 28": According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, ES-Kontraktstroy LLC, actually located in Moscow, was established in the Arkhangelsk region by the company Regiontekhnokhim (96% ) and General Director of LLC Alexey Nabokin (4%). Regiontekhnokhim, in turn, is listed in St. Petersburg and is 100% controlled by CEO Andrey Zheltov. […]
Several market participants, in a private conversation with RBC daily, said that inspection No. 28 is known “for the fact that VAT is returned there.” - Insert K.ru]

She and other inspectors claim that they found violations in the submitted documents and decided to conduct a desk inspection of ES-Kontraktstroy and the work it performed. To this, Ms. Chernichuk told her subordinates that the activities of this taxpayer are supervised by senior officials - not only the president, but also Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Nevertheless, the inspectorate went to the Vyborg region and found there that “there was a plant, that’s all.” The documents they requested, as the security explained, were destroyed. When Mrs. Chernichuk was informed about this, witnesses say, she began to threaten them: “You won’t think it’s enough.” Then she said that a criminal case would be opened against the head of the inspection under Art. 285 of the Criminal Code (“Abuse of official powers”). As a result, Olga Stepanova and two of her subordinates decided to resign from the inspectorate. ES-Kontraktstroy LLC never received the money. As participants in the investigation state, “the actual transfer of funds was prevented by law enforcement officials.”

Following the inspectors, the investigators also discovered that ES-Kontraktstroy did not carry out work for the declared amount of VAT. The company, having concluded an agreement with the customer - "Vyborg Cellulose", immediately found subcontractors - LLC "Construction Business Management-88" and LLC "Novostroy", and they, in turn, found the next performers. Suspicions were strengthened when it became clear that neither Vyborg Cellulose nor ES-Kontraktstroy paid for the work.

Vyborg Cellulose OJSC told Kommersant yesterday that no searches were carried out at their premises, and the company refused to discuss relations with ES-Kontraktstroy. On the website of Vyborg Cellulose it is indicated that in 2010 Es-Kontraktstroy carried out “construction and installation work on the project for installing a production line” for the enterprise.

According to Kommersant's information, yesterday employees of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee detained Messrs. Temnikov and Bevza. Olga Chernichuk has not yet been taken into custody. According to information from law enforcement agencies, a decision on its procedural status will be made after an analysis of all documents seized during the searches.

The head of the Russian Ministry of Finance, Alexei Kudrin, said that yesterday’s searches at the Federal Tax Service were initiated by the department itself. “These are events that were planned jointly with the security service of the Federal Tax Service for individual regional inspections, where, in our opinion, there were abuses. The events must be carried out. The Ministry of Finance has been informed,” he said. Deputy head of the Federal Tax Service Kirill Yankov told reporters the same thing. “We work on a regular basis with law enforcement agencies to suppress criminal acts among employees, of whom there are 14,605 ​​in Moscow, and 163,704 in the country as a whole. Among them, of course, there are those who break the law,” Mr. Yankov emphasized. However, as Kommersant's sources in the Investigative Committee say, if the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service themselves had initiated the initiation of a criminal case, then Olga Chernichuk would have been removed from service, but this did not happen.

[Vedomosti.Ru, 04/06/2011, “Searchs were held in the capital’s department of the Federal Tax Service”: Chernichuk’s name appeared in a scandalous publication on the website “Seven happy months of Mikhail Mishustin”, where she was called the curator of the so-called “toy scheme” for VAT refunds. The scheme was that in the mid-2000s, when reduced VAT rates were in effect for some groups of goods, a manufacturer, having paid suppliers of raw materials tax at the full VAT rate and produced, for example, toys from it, could apply to the Federal Tax Service for reimbursement of the difference between the basic and preferential rates. - Insert K.ru]

["Vedomosti", 04/07/2011, "Old Tails": Chernichuk was appointed to the post of deputy head in July 2010 by Mikhail Mishustin, the head of the Federal Tax Service, who recently took office. But Vedomosti's interlocutors disagree on whether she is his protégé. One tax official considers her a member of Mishustin’s team, while another disagrees with him. It’s strange to connect these people, because the head of the Federal Tax Service appoints the leadership of all departments, says a representative of the Federal Tax Service. This case will not lead to Mishustin’s resignation no matter the outcome, a government source believes. But it could lead to another resignation, says a former FSB officer: the purpose of the searches is to find out whether the deputy head of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Andrey Khorev, who oversees taxes, with businessman Alexander Sabadash (considered a co-owner of Vyborg Cellulose). Today a certification commission will be held in the Kremlin, at which the results of the recertification of police officers, including Khorev, will be summed up, said an employee of the presidential administration. - Insert K.ru]

“This case should in no way be perceived as a case against the Federal Tax Service; unfortunately, in every government body there may be people who break the law. And this is in no way connected with the department itself,” Prime Minister Vladimir’s press secretary told Kommersant Putin Dmitry Peskov. When asked whether this case was under special control in the White House, he noted that “the government does not have special control mechanisms; it can only be under special control by law enforcement agencies.”

Alexander Udodov (far right in the bottom row), whom the investigation suspected of complicity in VAT fraud, played in the same team of the Russian government “Sportima” with the head of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin (in the center) and the head of the Central Election Commission of “United Russia” Andrei Vorobyov (second bottom row left). Present at the Sportim award ceremony in 2011 were: First Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports Vladislav Tretyak, Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Sergei Naryshkin, Head of the Organizing Committee for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games Dmitry Chernyshenko and Deputy Chairman Government of Russia, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin (from right to left in the top row)

On Wednesday, searches took place at the capital's office of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) in Moscow on Bolshaya Tulskaya Street with the participation of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and special services.

Investigators also raided the apartment and dacha of the deputy head of the Federal Tax Service for Moscow, Olga Chernichuk, and tax office No. 28 in the South-Western District of the capital.

Detailed information will be announced only after the completion of investigative actions, said Victoria Tsyplenkova, official representative of the Investigative Committee for Moscow. However, it became known that the searches were most likely being carried out in the case of an attempt to steal two billion rubles from the federal budget by the company ES-Kontraktstroy under the guise of VAT reimbursement. By the way, Olga Chernichuk was in charge of VAT refund issues. As it turned out, the leadership of the Federal Tax Service knew about the planned searches and provided the investigation with the necessary information. Olga Chernichuk - We are aware of what is happening. This is not a surprise to us. But I would ask you not to rush to conclusions, since investigative actions are ongoing,” noted the head of the Federal Tax Service Mikhail Mishustin. As Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Alexei Kudrin said, the searches at the Federal Tax Service in Moscow were carried out on the initiative of the Federal Tax Service security service. “This event was planned for individual regional inspections and services, where, in our opinion, there were abuses,” said the Deputy Prime Minister. - The Security Service of the Federal Tax Service, together with law enforcement agencies, initiated checks. According to some sources, we are talking about ten episodes of theft of money under the guise of VAT refunds. According to others, in addition to ES-Kontraktstroy, 28 more companies are involved in laundering large sums. It looks like an investigation into this case could reveal multi-billion dollar embezzlement.

Detailed information will be announced only after the completion of investigative actions, said Victoria Tsyplenkova, official representative of the Investigative Committee for Moscow. However, it became known that the searches were most likely being carried out in the case of an attempt to steal two billion rubles from the federal budget by the company ES-Kontraktstroy under the guise of a VAT refund. By the way, Olga Chernichuk was in charge of VAT refund issues. As it turned out, the leadership of the Federal Tax Service knew about the planned searches and provided the investigation with the necessary information. Olga Chernichuk - We are aware of what is happening. This is not a surprise to us. But I would ask you not to rush to conclusions, since investigative actions are ongoing,” noted the head of the Federal Tax Service, Mikhail Mishustin. As Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Alexei Kudrin said, the searches at the Federal Tax Service in Moscow were carried out on the initiative of the Federal Tax Service security service. “This event was planned for individual regional inspections and services, where, in our opinion, there were abuses,” said the Deputy Prime Minister. - The Security Service of the Federal Tax Service, together with law enforcement agencies, initiated checks. According to some sources, we are talking about ten episodes of theft of money under the guise of VAT refunds. According to others, in addition to ES-Kontraktstroy, 28 more companies are involved in laundering large sums. It looks like an investigation into this case could reveal multi-billion dollar embezzlement.

Detailed information will be announced only after the completion of investigative actions, said Victoria Tsyplenkova, official representative of the Investigative Committee for Moscow.

However, it became known that the searches were most likely being carried out in the case of an attempt to steal two billion rubles from the federal budget by the company ES-Kontraktstroy under the guise of a VAT refund. By the way, Olga Chernichuk was in charge of VAT refund issues.

As it turned out, the leadership of the Federal Tax Service knew about the planned searches and provided the investigation with the necessary information.

We are aware of what is happening. This is not a surprise to us. But I would ask you not to rush to conclusions, since investigative actions are ongoing,” noted the head of the Federal Tax Service, Mikhail Mishustin.

As Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Alexei Kudrin said, the searches at the Federal Tax Service in Moscow were carried out on the initiative of the Federal Tax Service security service.

This event was planned for individual regional inspections and services, where, in our opinion, there were abuses,” the Deputy Prime Minister said. - The Security Service of the Federal Tax Service, together with law enforcement agencies, initiated checks.

According to some sources, we are talking about ten episodes of theft of money under the guise of VAT refunds. According to others, in addition to ES-Kontraktstroy, 28 more companies are involved in laundering large sums. It looks like an investigation into this case could reveal multi-billion dollar embezzlement.

Recent scandal with attempted theft through return VAT About 10 billion rubles from the budget in the Moscow Department of the Federal Tax Service are being extinguished at the highest level. In this case, various methods are used to derive their fighters from under attack. Only thanks to the prosecutor's office Switzerland and the Magnitsky case, the fiscal awl does not want to hide in the bag of Russian corruption. It is death Sergei Magnitsky exposed massive fraud in the Federal Tax Service of Russia.

Tax vaudeville

How became known The Moscow Post, V Investigative committee Russia Such important witnesses as Olga Vladimirovna Chernichuk and Alexander Evgenievich Udodov have already disappeared from the criminal case on the illegal return of VAT from the state budget. Apparently, as in the case Magnitsky, the entrepreneurs of the Arkhangelsk company will be at the extreme ES-Kontraktstroy, namely its director Roman Temkin and financial director Elena Bevza. Whether they will live to see the end of the investigation and whether this investigation will have an end is a big question.

We deliberately indicated the patronymic names of former witnesses in the ES-Kontraktstroy case so that there would be no discrepancies. The fact is that Olga Vladimirovna Chernichuk has already quit at your own request from Management tax service Moscow and left the capital in an unknown direction. As for her lover Alexander Evgenievich Udodov, at the moment he calmly continues to stay on Russian territory and is actively engaged in drying out his tarnished reputation.

Immediately after the information explosion in early April, when FSB officers carried out searches in the Moscow Federal Tax Service and Chernichuk’s apartment, from Federal Tax Service press releases were urgently sent out about what exactly Federal Tax Service became the initiator of these checks. Alexey Kudrin himself voiced this version.

In hindsight Prosecutor General's Office from the department Mishustina there were requests asking to check the legality of the return VAT. At the same time, an old case against the former head of the 28th Tax Inspectorate, already closed for a lot of money, was urgently brought to light. Moscow Olga Stepanova, who six months ago quickly retrained as a top manager at Rosoboronpostavka (run by Ministries defense Russian Federation). The same case of the 28th tax office, for the publicity of which Sergei Magnitsky paid with his life.

Now a lawyer Stepanova Larisa Move states that her client is cooperating with the investigation into the illegal VAT refund of the company ES-Kontaktstroy as a witness. Searches of Olga Chernichuk and Alexandra Udodova all the media, as if on command, associate it with the testimony Stepanova. One gets the feeling that two sick heads are shifting responsibility onto each other, being in full confidence that her opponent is healthy. In fact, everything is being done to bring the situation to vaudeville absurdity. This technique has long been practiced by Russian officials. This is the easiest way to avoid responsibility.

Hoopoe, but not that one

The funniest episode of the scandal happened with Alexander Evgenievich Udodov. And here a happy accident helped, of which there were plenty in the biography of Alexander Evgenievich. Immediately after the scandal broke out with searches in the 5th tax office and in the apartment Chernichuk The Itera group of companies was in turmoil. The reason for this was that the full namesake of the company’s vice president, Alexander Udodov, appeared in all the news stories. Press service Iteras, fearing for the image of her company, reacted instantly: at all times mass media a press release was sent out. Here is an excerpt from it: Alexander Vasilyevich Udodov has been working as vice president of this company since 2010 and is not a suspect in any criminal investigation, including a person involved in the case. Notice the difference? The namesakes turned out to be incomplete. Moreover, he is the coordinator of a criminal group Alexander Evgenievich Udodov born in 1969, and Vice President of Itera Alexander Vasilievich Udodov 16 years older than his namesake.

But for some strange reason, such a difference in middle names and ages did not bother the most respected Russian mass media, who unanimously published refutations that Alexander Udodov was in fact never associated with Olga Chernichuk and was not involved in any tax fraud. And in general, at the beginning of April I was on a business trip as a top manager of a respected group of companies.

Our Udodov grabbed this life-saving press release like a tick. This is a ready refutation! Remains one can only guess how much of the stolen money was spent for posting a “refutation”, and from which offices the big patrons of Alexander Evgenievich Udodov called, whom agencies such as Interfax, RIAN, Kommersant and others.

By the way, Alexander Udodov was indeed in Switzerland at the time of the searches, where he unexpectedly left just a few hours before they began. Strange coincidence, don't you think?
Divorce 20 years later

We know nothing about the investigation in Switzerland. Olga Germanovna Stepanova is a witness in only one criminal case, which is related to an attempt to illegally obtain VAT from the budget about 2 billion rubles, - said The Moscow Post advocate Stepanova Larisa Move.

Then we reminded Ms. Mauvais that the criminal case was opened by the Swiss prosecutor's office on March 7 at the request of the company Brown Rudnick, acting in the interests of the fund Bill Browder's Hermitage. The Foundation suspects the former head of the 28th Tax Inspectorate of Moscow, Olga Stepanova, and her two deputies - Elena Anisimova and Olga Tsareva that they first participated in the theft of billions of rubles from the Russian budget, and then laundered part of this money through a Swiss bank Credit Suisse and bought real estate with it.

Protector Olga Stepanova immediately changed her tone and began to assert that the facts cited by Hermitage did not relate to the official, but to her ex-husband, whom she divorced back in 1992. This is what happened to the happy couple when they divorced twenty years later. And how it was possible to formalize this question is better addressed to the employees of the Khamovnichesky registry office and, at the same time, the passport service of the same area.

However, the facts indicate that the Stepanovs lived in perfect harmony and traveled around the world together as a respectable couple. The Moscow Post managed to find out that from 2006–2010 Stepanovs We traveled abroad together 29 times. They visited Dubai alone, where the couple owns several properties, together nine times, spending a total of 95 days there, and went to Montenegro four more times. On trips Stepanovs preferred to use VIP service Moscow airports. Border crossing data shows that they crossed the border together each time, less than a minute apart.

The foundation claims that $230 million worth of illegal tax refunds through Moscow tax authorities was uncovered by the foundation's lawyer. Sergei Magnitsky. In 2008, he testified about his role in employee theft Ministry of Internal Affairs and tax authorities, and a month later he was arrested and died in a pre-trial detention center.

According to Hermitage, the heads of the tax inspectorate were recognized by the investigator as victims and misled. The fund also asks the insurance company to check the availability of real estate purchased Stepanova.

[abbreviated]

At the same time, the Federal Tax Service notes that for some reason law enforcement agencies did not give effect to the materials sent to them last fall and indicating that the former head of the capital’s tax inspectorate N28 Olga Stepanova made unfounded decisions to refund VAT to eight companies for a total of 4.4 billion rubles.

The head of tax inspectorate N28 for the city of Moscow, Olga Stepanova and her husband Vladlen Stepanov, judging by tax returns for 2006-2009, earned about 38 thousand dollars a year. However, since 2008, their income began to suddenly increase, but was not declared in Russia.

According to the Hermitage Foundation, the Stepanova family and its deputies Tsareva and Anisimova own expensive real estate. The Stepanovs' Hermitage property is valued at almost $28 million. These are five plots next to the estate Arkhangelskoe with a total area of ​​about 60 acres, a house of 800 sq. meters, built by a famous architect Alexander Kozyr, as well as a guest house of 300 sq. m, villas in Montenegro and Dubai on the Palm Island.

Husband Stepanova is also the beneficiary of two companies - a Cypriot Arivust Holdings Limited and registered in the British Virgin Islands Aikate Properties Inc. In 2008, the accounts of these companies in Credit Suisse significant funds were credited: to Arivust accounts - 7.1 million euros, to Aikate accounts - 750 thousand euros and 300 thousand dollars.

So, a dangerous precedent could be created in Switzerland for Russian officials - they could lose their property abroad. However, according to other lawyers, everything is not so bad for compromised officials - Russian laws prohibit their extradition, and legalization can only be proven with the assistance of investigators in the Russian Federation. And our investigation is that the drawbar...