Our familiar MP Voronenkov, the owner of a 446-square-meter apartment on Tverskaya Street, is now reportedly about to face criminal charges in a fraud case.
I want to point out that this is a textbook case of illicit enrichment. The guy has been in public service for 20 years and owns real estate and a fleet of cars that, at his current level of legitimate income, he would have to work 500 (five hundred!!!) years to afford.
If our bill on combating illicit enrichment had become law, Voronenkov could have been prosecuted long ago without all this fuss over a fraud case, which will probably fall apart anyway. In any case, procedurally speaking, proving a mismatch between lawful income and actual spending is a hundred times easier than proving fraud. That is exactly what makes our bill such an important anti-corruption tool. Can he explain where the money came from? No, he cannot. Then let the investigation begin. And if you want to do business without anyone poking into your affairs, then go do business—but don’t take up a seat in the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament).
People