When we at the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation) were predicting how Deputy Mayor Liksutov would try to wriggle out of the issue of his foreign assets, we treated the fake-divorce scenario more as a joke: surely you can’t insult a city of 10 million people by deceiving it so brazenly. I even wrote on Twitter:
And twenty minutes later we learned that, for Moscow City Hall officials, the concept of “you can’t deceive people this insultingly” simply does not exist: THE HEAD OF MOSCOW’S DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT, MAXIM LIKSUTOV, DENIED REPORTS THAT HIS WIFE OWNS SHARES IN A FOREIGN COMPANY IN VIOLATION OF RUSSIAN LAW. January 16, 2014 | 15:30 Liksutov said that on June 26 of last year he divorced his wife. Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court divided the property. All foreign assets went to Liksutov’s ex-wife Tatyana, who is an Estonian citizen.* http://www.echo.msk.ru/news/1239250-echo.html Isn’t that just wonderful.
On the 20th he transfers shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars to his wife, and then on the 26th he gets divorced, leaving all the property to her.
Tatyana Liksutova on the TV show "Fashion Verdict" (a Russian makeover program). Millions of women sighed: w*here can you find a millionaire husband like that—one who divorces you and leaves you ALL his property? * Data from the Zamoskvoretsky court confirm that the transfer of shares took place on the eve of the final hearing that was supposed to legally formalize the divorce. An especially touching detail: the Liksutovs filed for divorce on March 4, just ten days after the first reading of the law banning officials from owning foreign assets. They skip the April hearing (while the law has not yet been finally passed), and after the law is passed in that final form, they come to court and get divorced. Some people enter into a sham marriage to help a Tajik migrant obtain citizenship. An official arranges a sham divorce to avoid falling under the law. Liksutov is completely innocent. Aeroxpress is owned by his ex-wife.
This crafty little trick gives us an entirely new perspective on Maxim Stanislavovich Liksutov. He’s simply a pathological liar and con man. He claimed he had sold the business (December 26, 2012), but in fact he owned it until June 20, 2013, after which he clearly expressed his desire to keep owning it (and expanding it while in public office) by arranging a comically fake divorce from his wife. How can Sobyanin keep him in government service after all this has come to light? The Anti-Corruption Foundation is demanding Liksutov’s resignation with even greater insistence, as well as an investigation into his activities, clarification of conflicts of interest, and a check into whether the “divorce” was a sham. And besides, this is a much bigger scheme. We’ll tell you about it soon.