In December 2015, Alexei Navalny released his first major documentary investigation, which sent shockwaves across the country. The film tells the story of the criminal empire of Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika's sons, Artyom and Igor, whose businesses were built on corporate raiding, the seizure of state property, and ties to the Tsapok gang (a notorious Russian criminal group). Despite irrefutable evidence of extortion and Swiss bank accounts, the Russian authorities predictably ignored the investigation, vividly demonstrating the complete merger of the prosecutor's office with organized crime.
Text version
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In May 2014,
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the Greek press was flooded
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with reports about an opening ceremony of
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an incredible scale for a new hotel.
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Here it is — this five-star
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seaside hotel in Halkidiki,
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the main resort area of mainland Greece.
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Judging by the interior finishes,
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you could tell that the construction
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had cost tens of millions of euros.
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Above ground,
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there were luxury rooms for
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$4,000 a day, and below —
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taking up almost even more space —
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a spa complex finished
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in solid marble.
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The opening ceremony is hosted by a well-known
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Russian master of ceremonies.
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The evening’s main star is singer Philipp Kirkorov.
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It is clear that the investor spent
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an enormous amount of money. Acrobats, entertainers,
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and magicians — all of them were brought in from Russia.
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The same goes for
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the entire technical staff, right down
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to the florists and lighting technicians.
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Remarkably, the ceremonial speech on stage is delivered by
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none other than Russia’s Minister of Culture,
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Vladimir Medinsky.
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In the hall, he is being listened to by Russia’s elite:
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businessmen, regional leaders, and politicians.
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The evening’s climax is a fireworks display and laser show.
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Projected onto the hotel building is
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a giant Russian flag.
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Who paid for such a lavish celebration,
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and whom is the Minister of Culture
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personally congratulating from the stage?
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Reports say that the hotel’s owners are
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investors from Russia.
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It sounds as though we are talking about some well-known
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oligarch or hotel magnate. But that is not the case.
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In this video, the real owners of the hotel
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solemnly
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cut the ribbon.
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Recognize him? This is Artyom Yuryevich Chaika,
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the son of Russia’s Prosecutor General.
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You are almost certainly seeing his face for the first time.
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Despite his relative
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prominence,
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until quite recently, no one
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knew what he looked like.
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Artyom Chaika,
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a central figure in the most high-profile
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anti-corruption case of the 2010s:
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the case of the illegal casinos outside Moscow.
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The fight against corruption in the law enforcement
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agencies is moving forward...
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At the addresses listed online, there really were
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illegal casinos... It seemed that after this exposé,
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the process would spread across the whole country...
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— For money, they could open a criminal case, close one,
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make personnel appointments, and so on...
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In the end, the case fell apart.
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But it became the first mention in many years
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of the Prosecutor General’s son.
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It turned out that, with direct and
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unlimited access to the highest levels
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of power and effectively immunity from any kind of
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prosecution, by the age of thirty he had already
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become a dollar millionaire.
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In terms of the number and variety of assets
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owned by Artyom,
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they resemble an entire business empire.
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Hotels and sand quarries,
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concrete plants and salt deposits —
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spread across Russia and beyond are
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the diversified assets
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belonging to the son of Prosecutor General
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Chaika.
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— Thousands of people work for him,
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and the turnover of his companies runs into hundreds
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of millions of dollars. But what
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Artyom Chaika and his associates do
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has nothing to do with business.
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It is gangsterism,
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corporate raiding and intimidation under
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the protection of
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the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation,
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Yury Yakovlevich Chaika.
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When we became interested in the story of the hotel
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in Greece, we uncovered a mafia structure
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of enormous scale,
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closely tied to the Prosecutor’s Office
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of the Russian Federation.
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It turned out that the illegal
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casinos outside Moscow
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were just one of several sources
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of enrichment for the younger Chaika.
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For more than fifteen years now, together
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with his father’s subordinates, employees of
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the prosecutor’s office, Artyom Chaika has been taking control
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one after another
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of key assets in Russia’s largest
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regions.
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Today, he is a dollar millionaire.
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In Europe, he is seen as an oligarch and
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an international investor,
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but in reality
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he is merely one link in a vast
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corruption scheme
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created under the protection of his
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father,
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Yury Chaika.
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Artyom Chaika did not invest in
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the Greek hotel alone.
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Alongside him was
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the hotel’s second owner.
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Her name is Olga Lopatina.
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Why would Artyom take some
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random woman on as a partner?
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— Olga Lopatina is the
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former wife
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of Deputy Prosecutor General
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Gennady Lopatin.
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She is listed in his asset declarations for 2009
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and 2010. In 2011, she disappeared from them.
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And all the property that had been registered
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in her name disappeared along with her, too.
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In other words, there was no
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division of property. This is a common
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scheme in which an official,
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wanting to formally
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distance himself from a business, simply divorces
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his wife
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and says, "Well, there you go, I'm so generous,
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I left everything to my wife. All the property, the entire
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business, and now she lives her own life, I live
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mine, and I have no idea what's going on with her anymore."
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Judging by everything, the Lopatins' divorce appears to be a sham.
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In a recent 2014 photograph, on Olga's right hand
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a wedding ring is clearly visible.
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Besides, Olga and Gennady actively
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interact on Facebook: they play online games
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and like each other's photos.
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And apparently they divorced simply in order
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to conceal property and income.
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Here is Olga's last
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declaration before the divorce.
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Income: 0 rubles. There is no way to explain investments in a luxury
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hotel in Greece with an income like that
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.
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And ownership stakes in the foreign company that founded
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the hotel would also have had to be disclosed
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in the next declaration.
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The most interesting question, of course,
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remains this: where did the wife of the deputy
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prosecutor general
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get the millions of euros needed to buy a hotel
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in Greece?
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Olga Lopatina did not state in her declaration
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that she was involved in the sugar trade.
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She is the founder
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of two companies specializing
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in sugar — one in Moscow and one in Krasnodar Krai (a region in southern Russia).
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In fact, Olga Lopatina, the wife
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of the deputy prosecutor general, has very strong reasons
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to hide this business.
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Her business partners,
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the co-founders of the sugar
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enterprise,
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are Angela-Maria Tsapok
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and Natalya Tsepovyaz.
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They are the wives of the leaders of the Kushchyovskaya organized crime group
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Sergei Tsapok and his right-hand man Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz.
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So it turns out that the wife of the deputy prosecutor general
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is in business together with the wives
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of some of the most brutal gangsters
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in modern Russian history.
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The gang effectively ruled
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an entire district of Krasnodar Krai for
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20 years.
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During that time, the criminals were responsible for
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hundreds of rapes and dozens
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of murders, corporate raids, seizures of businesses,
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and the bribery of officials.
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And of course, the final crime was
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a mass murder.
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On November 4, 2010,
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the Tsapok gang burst into the home of a local
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businessman who had somehow fallen afoul of them,
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and, one after another, killed 14 people,
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including three children and an infant.
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The Tsapok gang burned their victims' bodies.
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— In this short and boring extract from
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the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, there are, in fact, answers to very important
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questions. How did they manage to control
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a huge share of the businesses
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in Krasnodar Krai? How did they manage
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to terrorize the entire population?
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How were they able to remain
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unpunished for so long?
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It's simple: they were protected by
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senior officials in the Prosecutor General's Office.
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After the mass murder,
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the Tsapok gang members were finally arrested and imprisoned.
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Most of the gang are now
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in prison, and its leader, Sergei Tsapok,
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died of a heart attack in 2014
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in his cell.
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The investigation into the Tsapok gang's crimes
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was conducted under the special supervision of the head
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of the Investigative Committee
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Alexander Bastrykin.
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The Investigative Committee's best personnel were assigned
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to solving the case.
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All the more surprising, then, that in the course of this
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investigation
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the investigators never found out that the Tsapok gang
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were doing business together with the wives
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of high-ranking
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prosecutor's office officials,
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even though the connections were obvious:
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a criminal case had already been opened against Tsapok
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and then immediately canceled by order of
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regional prosecutor Leonid Korzhinek.
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In Lopatina's sugar business,
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besides the Tsapok wives, there is also a fourth partner —
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Nadezhda Staroverova,
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the wife of the head of administration
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of the Prosecutor General's Office, Alexei Staroverov.
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In November 2014, he was suspended from
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his post after, in his country estate outside Moscow,
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a weapons cache and members of
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the so-called GTA Gang were discovered,
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a group of bandits who had killed and robbed 14 people
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on highways in the Moscow region.
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The prosecutor was sheltering them under the guise of his security detail
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and household staff.
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The money earned together with the wives
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of gangsters, Olga invested not only
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in the hotel.
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According to Greek land registry records, not far
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from the hotel
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you can also find her villa.
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Marble, stained glass, gold,
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huge chandeliers and furniture in the style
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of Louis XIV — "prosecutorial baroque."
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Olga's Greek villa was built by the same
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people who built the Pomegranate hotel.
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On its website, the developer
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boasts of another project —
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yet another villa on the seashore.
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Construction is in full swing: excavators are
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creating an artificial landscape and have even
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built a special acropolis-style gazebo.
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The villa’s windows offer a magnificent view
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of the holy Mount Athos. According to the documents, the owner of this villa is
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Artyom Chaika.
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The local press writes that Artyom first came to Greece
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on his honeymoon.
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His father instilled in him a love for this country.
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Yury Chaika has repeatedly said that
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he visits holy sites every year.
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Artyom Chaika’s neighbors smile and say
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that a friend of Putin’s lives next door.
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The Greek press is full of stories about
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the country’s most luxurious and expensive hotel.
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Travel agencies sell VIP tours
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to the Pomegranate spa complex on the shores of the
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Mediterranean Sea.
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Behind all this stand the son
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of the prosecutor general and the wife
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of a deputy prosecutor general.
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Family members of officials
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whose job is to fight
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crime and corruption.
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But this is only the beginning of the story. Hotels and villas
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are what Artyom Chaika and Olga Lopatina
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spent money on,
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money earned long before that.
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The Pomegranate hotel is owned by a Greek company.
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This document is an extract
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from the legal entities register.
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And here are this company’s financial statements:
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Artyom Chaika’s signature.
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In Greek, only the surname is really legible here.
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If you run the text through an electronic
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translator, the details become clear.
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For example, that the son of Russia’s
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prosecutor general
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lists as his country of residence
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Switzerland.
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— In the documents appointing the president of the hotel
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and of the company he owns, it is stated
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that Artyom Chaika holds
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Swiss identity documents.
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That means this person pays taxes there,
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owns real estate there, and lives there.
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We found that property.
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In Swiss registries, listed under the son of Russia’s prosecutor general
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of Russia
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is this small house on
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the shore of Lake Geneva.
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And on the mailbox, the inscription reads:
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Monsieur and Madame Chaika.
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We checked the land registries.
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But it turned out that this house
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does not belong to Artyom’s family.
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— The practical purpose of this house
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is basically clear. It is not meant for
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living there, but rather to:
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a) accumulate residency time
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for official paperwork,
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obtaining citizenship
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or something else.
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b) to have a mailing
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address in Switzerland, where the Swiss authorities
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could send correspondence.
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Obviously, the search
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had to continue,
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and that if Artyom Chaika had already decided
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to tie his life to Switzerland,
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then one should look for a house on a more prosecutor-general
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scale.
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What gave us hope was the fact
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that the small house whose mailbox
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bore the name “Chaika,”
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was owned by a certain
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Lisyurenko family.
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As it turned out, this family was far from
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random.
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Liliya Lisyurenko is a friend of the family of Deputy Prosecutor General
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Gennady Lopatin.
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Artyom Chaika’s real home
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was found practically “around the corner,”
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a couple of kilometers from the house with the mailbox.
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A year ago, Artyom Chaika bought
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a mansion for nearly 3 million francs.
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That is about 3 million U.S. dollars.
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Stylish and modern housing,
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an excellent terrace,
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you can set up a table and drink tea overlooking
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Lake Geneva and the Alps.
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It appears that
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Artyom and his family are planning
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to move to Switzerland
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for good,
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but it does not stop with real estate.
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The house has to be maintained,
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and that requires accounts in local banks.
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In addition, the legal entities register reveals
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his own company as well,
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a law firm.
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Artyom Chaika is trained as a lawyer.
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The firm is truly a family business:
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until March 2015, a stake was owned by Igor Chaika,
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the prosecutor general’s younger son.
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He then transferred his shares to his older brother.
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The Chaikas’ firm specializes in
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setting up Swiss businesses,
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asset management,
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immigration matters,
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a full range of legal services,
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including import and export.
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the firm is called FT Conseils,
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where “FT” are the initials of his partner,
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François Taren.
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We went to the address where
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this company is registered,
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to check whether the son
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of the prosecutor general
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really does business in Switzerland.
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Monsieur Taren was there, but refused
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to speak with journalists.
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(speaking in English)
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Monsieur Taren knows Russians well.
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In the 1990s, he helped with obtaining
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Swiss citizenship for Sergei Mikhailov,
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known in the Russian press as
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the head of the Solntsevo organized crime group, nicknamed
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"Mikhas."
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In addition, Taren worked at the firm
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Juridical House. Until 2007, it was owned by the son
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of the former head of administration of Russia's Prosecutor General's Office
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Nazir Khapsirokov, now a senator,
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Murat Khapsirokov.
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This firm handles the Chaika family's accounts
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in Switzerland,
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and manages their assets.
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Since 2003, the family accounts of the prosecutor general
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have been receiving millions of dollars.
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That money is used to buy houses by the lake and
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hotels by the sea.
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The Chaikas say the source of these funds is
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the operations of a shipping company in Irkutsk.
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To understand how the son made millions of dollars,
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the prosecutor general's son,
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we need to go to Siberia.
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The Lena River begins in the hills near Lake Baikal.
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It was in Irkutsk Oblast
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that Russia's prosecutor general began his career,
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Yury Chaika.
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This is also where his son Artyom started his business career.
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Artyom's object of interest was the shipping company in
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the town of Ust-Kut.
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It is 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) north of Irkutsk.
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The shipping company had the status of a
16:30
strategic enterprise for national security
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because it supplied fuel
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and food to Yakutia (Sakha Republic).
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In 2002, problems began
16:40
with these northern deliveries.
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This is what the fleet of the Upper Lena
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Shipping Company looks like now.
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Until the late 1990s,
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it looked different.
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The northern delivery operation
17:00
used seventy large tankers and
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river-sea class cargo ships.
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In 1999,
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Artyom, together with State Duma deputy
17:11
Bashir Kodzoyev,
17:13
founded the company "Laena."
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It issued the shipping company a loan of
17:17
$2 million to repair its motor ships.
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When the money had been spent, "Laena"
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demanded early repayment of the loan.
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The shipping company barely repaid it,
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but then had no money left for current operations.
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Deputy Kodzoyev
17:32
asked the federal service for financial
17:34
recovery to declare
17:35
the shipping company bankrupt,
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while Artyom Chaika, a graduate of the law faculty
17:38
of Irkutsk University, drafted a program for
17:41
financial recovery.
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To do this, he proposed transferring management
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to his own people.
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The shipping company's director did not agree.
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Then Chaika placed one of his
17:51
former classmates among the shareholders
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and convened a meeting to change
17:55
the board of directors.
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That did not work either.
17:58
Then criminal cases were opened against the directors of VLRP
18:02
but not by the regional transport
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prosecutor's office,
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rather by the city prosecutor's office in Irkutsk.
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It was headed by Albina Kovaleva,
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a friend of the Chaika family.
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— There is a whole infrastructure in place for this.
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Chaika himself comes from Irkutsk Oblast.
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All the employees
18:18
of the prosecutor's office are effectively
18:20
his appointees.
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There is Albina Kovaleva
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with a unique position.
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The woman is,
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I think, over 70,
18:29
maybe even over 80.
18:30
She still works in the
18:31
prosecutor's office, although by age she should have
18:32
retired long ago.
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Her position is something like
18:36
"the prosecutor general's representative at the prosecutor's office."
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A very interesting way to draw a salary and
18:41
influence certain processes. And the prosecutor's office
18:43
is, after all, a legal marketplace of violence.
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At first glance, an insignificant
18:47
figure in this story,
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State Counselor of Justice
18:50
2nd Class, Albina Kovaleva,
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worked in the prosecutor's office
18:54
of Irkutsk Oblast alongside Yury Chaika
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and still influences his decisions.
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Her son, Dmitry Berdnikov,
19:02
was appointed mayor of Irkutsk immediately after
19:04
the city abolished mayoral elections.
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Dmitry himself does not hide his friendship
19:10
with the prosecutor general's son.
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— Are you in a very close relationship with the son
19:16
of our prosecutor general?
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— You know, we have always been involved in completely different things.
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And the fact that we are friends, you probably understand,
19:26
that a good friend is always a good friend.
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It does not matter whose son he is. I would not attach any excessive
19:29
importance to our relationship.
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According to the media, Albina Kovaleva's protégés include:
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Russia's prosecutor general Yury Chaika,
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Deputy Prosecutor General
19:40
Ivan Semchishin,
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the prosecutor of Zabaykalsky Krai,
19:44
former Tomsk Oblast prosecutor Vasily Voykin,
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Saratov Oblast prosecutor
19:48
Vladimir Stepanov, and
19:50
Murmansk Oblast prosecutor Maxim Yershov.
19:52
Also among them is Igor Melnikov, the prosecutor
19:55
of Irkutsk Oblast, as well as
19:57
Krasnodar Krai prosecutor Leonid Korzhinek,
20:00
the very one who covered up for the Tsapok gang.
20:03
All these officials come from the prosecutor's offices
20:06
specifically from Irkutsk Oblast.
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As for Artyom Chaika, Albina Kovaleva is also said
20:12
to have had warm relations with him. It is reported that
20:14
he publicly calls her his “second mother.”
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The shipping company director who stood up to
20:20
Chaika and the prosecutors, Nikolai Palenny.
20:23
Here is how he described the attack on his companies in
20:26
December 2002:
20:28
— The conflict
20:30
between... not between, but over the enterprises of
20:32
the Upper Lena Shipping Company, the Kirensk and
20:34
Alexeevsk fleet repair and maintenance bases
20:36
has already been going on for,
20:37
roughly speaking, 2 years. This conflict, which
20:39
is being created for us,
20:41
is being created for us by a group of,
20:43
as I would say,
20:45
not entirely
20:46
decent people.
20:49
And among those behind it is
20:51
the son of the justice minister, Artyom Yuryevich Chaika.
20:54
It creates a very negative environment for
20:57
the work of our enterprises.
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At that time, Nikolai Palenny still hoped that he
21:02
would be able to reach the country’s leadership
21:05
and prevent the looting of a state-owned enterprise.
21:07
— We want, so to speak, to warn
21:09
our State Property Ministry against hasty steps.
21:12
So that they do not take
21:13
these hasty steps to
21:15
replace the management
21:16
and so that they do not bring into our region
21:19
some outsiders from who knows where
21:21
to our northern lands. And not decide
21:24
the fate of our managers like this.
21:26
That is no way to run a state.
21:29
At 11 a.m. on December 30, 2002,
21:33
Nikolai Palenny left his own
21:35
apartment in this building to go
21:36
to the garage for his car.
21:38
An hour later, at 12:00 p.m.,
21:40
he would be found hanged in the garage.
21:43
No criminal case was opened.
21:45
The cause of death was declared to be suicide.
21:48
Only later were journalists anonymously given
21:50
these documents
21:51
from the forensic medical examination.
21:54
They mention here a ligature mark.
21:57
That is the mark left by a rope on the neck.
21:59
Its length is 41 centimeters.
22:02
That is the circumference of the victim’s neck.
22:04
In other words, the mark is continuous.
22:05
Whereas in a suicide by hanging, the noose does not
22:08
completely encircle the neck.
22:10
Despite the fact that by all indications it was
22:12
obviously a murder,
22:13
law enforcement and the prosecutor’s office
22:15
never investigated Palenny’s death.
22:20
Where did the ships go?
22:22
For the first time, we are revealing the scheme used to siphon off
22:24
these state-owned assets.
22:27
The river-sea class dry cargo ships were assigned
22:30
to two fleet bases,
22:32
the Kirensk and Alexeevsk bases.
22:34
These bases signed contracts
22:36
for cargo transportation through the parent
22:37
company:
22:38
the Upper Lena River Shipping Company.
22:41
After the death of the shipping company director
22:42
Palenny,
22:43
the ships, without any legal
22:45
grounds, began to be controlled by
22:47
a self-appointed management company
22:50
with a similar name, “United
22:52
Upper Lena River Shipping Company.”
22:55
It had been created only recently
22:57
and was registered at the same address as
23:00
Artyom Chaika’s other companies:
23:03
5 Mashkova Street, Building 1, Moscow.
23:08
So what happened to the ships?
23:11
Through a chain of fraudulent court
23:13
rulings
23:13
and the insertion of front
23:15
creditors,
23:15
the shipping company was forced
23:17
to pay off its debts with vessels.
23:19
As a result, 16 ships ended up with
23:22
the Moscow equestrian club
23:23
“Serafimovo.”
23:25
The club is controlled by the same people as
23:27
“United Upper Lena River
23:29
Shipping Company.”
23:30
Behind them are Artyom Chaika and his partners.
23:33
Another five ships
23:35
were sold to a front company.
23:37
Within six months, they were re-registered
23:39
to Chaika’s companies.
23:40
Several ships were sold for next to nothing
23:42
to Maltese offshore companies.
23:44
And more than ten motor ships
23:46
were leased personally by Artyom Chaika.
23:48
The special rate for the prosecutor general’s son
23:51
was three times below market rate.
24:02
The ships that were not suitable
24:04
for sea transport,
24:05
were simply abandoned,
24:09
while the proceeds from the sales went through a classic
24:11
money-laundering scheme.
24:13
They were transferred to one of the Latvian banks,
24:15
where they were moved from account to account until
24:18
they were transferred to Switzerland
24:19
to the Chaika family’s accounts.
24:20
Over time,
24:22
they were converted into houses on the shore of
24:24
Lake Geneva.
24:27
Artyom Chaika did not stop
24:29
with the takeover of the shipping company.
24:31
After that,
24:32
several people from his team moved into
24:34
the salt business, also in the Irkutsk region.
24:47
This is the Tyret salt mine,
24:49
the fourth-largest salt deposit
24:51
in Russia by extraction volume.
24:53
In November 2011, the state-owned
24:56
enterprise was sold for 660 million rubles,
24:59
although estimates put
25:01
its value at three times that amount.
25:05
With the help of the head of the Irkutsk branch
25:06
of Rosimushchestvo (Russia’s Federal Agency for State Property Management), Fetisov,
25:08
the owner of the mine became
25:10
a brand-new company
25:12
"Solidarity," linked to Artyom Chaika's business network.
25:14
— Fetisov, in fact,
25:15
is a former police officer.
25:18
Irkutsk city prosecutor Kovaleva,
25:20
Albina Semyonovna, later moved
25:22
first to the regional prosecutor's office
25:24
and then headed
25:26
the justice department for the registration of
25:29
real estate transactions.
25:31
Fetisov headed
25:34
the security department of that agency, and later
25:37
in time, when
25:40
Chaika had already become Prosecutor General,
25:42
Kovaleva became an adviser
25:44
to the Prosecutor General,
25:46
and Fetisov moved to the post of
25:48
head of the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo) in
25:49
the Irkutsk Region.
25:51
It turns out that Pavel Fetisov, who became
25:53
head of Rosimushchestvo
25:55
in the Irkutsk Region,
25:56
had previously worked under
25:58
Albina Kovaleva.
25:59
This whole
26:00
reshuffling, this
26:03
so to speak, Fetisov's closeness precisely
26:06
to that team,
26:07
which
26:08
worked with Chaika for a long time in various
26:10
positions,
26:11
gives grounds to suppose that
26:14
the appointment—that is, one of the purposes
26:16
of appointing him to this post—
26:18
was specifically
26:19
the privatization of the Tyret salt mine.
26:23
The other participants
26:25
in the privatization auction for
26:26
the largest salt mine were simply
26:28
not allowed in.
26:29
— There was straightforward
26:30
intimidation there, in the sense that there was at least one group of
26:33
people who wanted to take part
26:35
in the auction for its sale, and they were simply
26:37
told: "Guys, how many criminal cases
26:39
do you want on each of you? Take your pick:
26:41
pedophilia,
26:42
a perfect charge, right, and that's it—life immediately
26:44
ends.
26:45
Any pretrial detention center in Russia. Want to sit with HIV-positive
26:47
inmates? With tuberculosis patients?
26:49
Any service you like."
26:50
People said: "No, no, no, thank you, we no longer
26:53
want to have anything more to do with
26:55
the Tyret salt mine."
26:57
That is how completely different assets across the
26:59
country change hands with the
27:01
assistance of the prosecutor's office.
27:02
For some, the business tool is
27:04
an IPO; for others, it's their father's subordinates.
27:15
Artyom Chaika's next target is
27:16
the Vorobyovskoye salt deposit
27:18
near Kaluga.
27:20
In 2013, applications for the tender to develop it
27:23
were submitted by four participants,
27:25
two of whom,
27:25
including the leading contender,
27:27
the main player on the Russian salt market,
27:29
the company "RusSol",
27:31
had their applications rejected on the grounds that they
27:33
"did not possess the technical
27:34
means necessary to carry out work on
27:37
the site."
27:38
Allowed to participate were "Maloyaroslavets
27:40
Salt Works"
27:41
and the "Tyret salt mine."
27:44
The first belongs to Chaika-linked entities
27:46
through the company "Galit,"
27:48
the second through affiliated persons.
27:50
How is such a tender possible?
27:52
It is possible. Under the protection of regional prosecutor
27:55
Dmitry Demeshin.
27:57
He is closely acquainted with Artyom Chaika.
27:59
So closely that he calls him "brother."
28:01
A month after the tender, Demeshin
28:04
received the rank of major general
28:06
and moved to Moscow,
28:08
where he headed the department for combating
28:10
corruption at the General
28:11
Prosecutor's Office.
28:12
And here is Artyom himself,
28:14
burying a capsule in the foundation
28:16
of a plant for producing salt
28:18
from the Vorobyovskoye deposit.
28:22
In the footage, posing next to his brother Artyom is
28:25
the Prosecutor General's younger son
28:26
Igor,
28:28
but more on him later.
28:30
Oleg Karapetov, director of a sand quarry, came face to face with how this raiding system
28:32
of the younger Chaika operates.
28:34
The director of the sand quarry was Oleg
28:36
Karapetov.
28:37
This sand quarry, not far from
28:39
the Vorobyovskoye salt deposit
28:41
also near Kaluga. Oleg Karapetov worked here
28:43
his whole life, and last spring all
28:45
access roads to the largest explored sand quarry in the Kaluga Region
28:49
were blocked by felled
28:50
trees. Under the office windows,
28:52
a car stood watch around the clock
28:54
with employees of the prosecutor's office inside.
28:56
— The prosecutor's office was there all day,
29:00
two or three people at a time conducting inspections,
29:02
and at that point I began to understand
29:06
that something was clearly wrong here.
29:08
That was the purpose of their visit: to shut down
29:11
the enterprise.
29:13
The quarry's license was revoked.
29:16
One of the reasons given by the prosecutor's office was
29:17
that the bulldozer did not have a steering wheel.
29:20
I traveled many times, met with people everywhere,
29:24
and they all pointed in the same direction— these were not ordinary people,
29:27
well, up there, to the top, and that was that.
29:29
I believe that the prosecutor's office
29:32
is now carrying out this so-called "justice."
29:34
Several years ago, the Mostovsky quarry
29:36
got new neighbors.
29:38
The deposit on the other bank of the Ugra River
29:40
was handed over to the company
29:41
Siberian Element — Renta K.
29:44
When the companies became competitors for
29:46
sand supplies for the reconstruction of
29:47
Kiev Highway,
29:49
inspections began at the Mostovsky quarry.
29:52
In every case, the initiator is the environmental
29:55
prosecutor's office.
29:56
— Whom have I caused losses to? No one is making any claims.
30:01
Everywhere, it's the prosecutor's office.
30:03
I've worked here for forty years,
30:05
and I'm not afraid of anything. Crush me, crush me—let people hear this.
30:10
Shameful!
30:12
We're building a state governed by law,
30:14
and you are the first ones meant to uphold it. I'm saying this to you here in front of everyone.
30:18
— I will now draw up a report on the refusal to provide documents
30:20
and on a 90-day suspension, so that means we'll proceed this way.
30:26
— This Siberian Element has
30:29
one founder,
30:30
an individual—
30:31
Artyom Chaika.
30:33
So that's what this is about... I tried to reach the higher-ups in Moscow,
30:38
but no one was willing to make contact, and people also tried
30:40
to settle the matter.
30:42
Somehow, I...
30:45
I've been trying for a year now.
30:46
I went to see the minister a couple of times,
30:49
they're decent guys, after all, we're inspected every year,
30:52
every year... And these people, honestly,
30:55
they point here too, and point upward there
30:57
as well.
31:00
They say, 'We can't do anything,'
31:02
'go to court.' Everywhere I was told: 'Stick to the courts.'
31:06
It looks like racketeering.
31:08
During these inspections, the prosecutor of
31:10
the Kaluga Region was
31:11
Alexander Yuryevich Gulyagin,
31:13
the son of the current Deputy
31:14
Prosecutor General of Russia—
31:17
Yury Gulyagin.
31:18
The quarry workers suspect that
31:20
it was he who gave instructions to his
31:22
staff and, in doing so, acted in the interests of
31:24
his superior's son—
31:26
Artyom Chaika.
31:28
In his spare time, when not taking over state assets,
31:31
Artyom rides motorcycles.
31:33
He's a biker.
31:35
This year, with his own
31:36
motorcycle club, Iron Birds, he went to Minsk
31:39
for the opening and closing of the motorcycle season.
31:41
Local journalists filmed him
31:43
in a column of motorcyclists, in the company of his brother Igor.
31:47
The younger son of Russia's Prosecutor General,
31:49
like Artyom,
31:50
went into business while still a student
31:53
and by the age of 27 had achieved impressive
31:56
success.
31:57
His approach is different from
31:58
what his brother does.
32:00
He mainly makes his
32:01
money from government contracts.
32:03
His business is inseparably tied to winning
32:06
multi-million-ruble tenders
32:08
for landscaping,
32:09
urban improvement, and waste removal.
32:11
He secures his victories
32:13
through administrative leverage and a network of
32:15
affiliated firms, which each time enter into
32:18
cartel collusion
32:19
in order to win the tender.
32:27
One of the largest in Europe, a new skate park
32:29
was opened today in Ostankino. The site
32:31
covers
32:32
no less than one hectare (10,000 square meters). — As part of completing the park,
32:35
the reconstruction of Ostankino Park
32:38
a great, enormous amount of work was done.
32:40
— I remember, you told me about this.
32:41
Three days later, this largest-in-Europe
32:44
skate park was closed for reconstruction.
32:45
It turned out that riding in it was simply dangerous to
32:49
life.
32:50
— This is just a total disaster.
32:52
I mean, if a small child
32:53
falls in here, they'll probably be screaming, and
32:56
like...
32:57
no one will be able to get them out at all.
32:58
Yeah, it's extremely dangerous, all warped and uneven.
33:02
I don't know, whoever drops into it
33:03
would probably deserve a lot of
33:05
money just for dropping in here.
33:07
Just overall, the quality of the surface,
33:09
yeah, it's shoddy.
33:12
The construction was clearly not done according to proper standards.
33:16
The skate park was part of the reconstruction of
33:18
the large Ostankino Park.
33:20
It was carried out by the company CityStroyService.
33:24
Besides it, the tender also included the companies
33:26
Innovations of Light,
33:28
BalticStroyCompany
33:30
and Navigation Solutions.
33:32
Innovations of Light
33:33
belongs to Igor Chaika, the younger brother of
33:36
Artyom.
33:37
At first glance, these are just four
33:39
companies founded by different people from
33:41
different cities.
33:42
However,
33:43
these firms are closely connected to one another.
33:46
First, the addresses of their offices
33:49
and branches match.
33:50
At one point, three out of the four companies
33:53
used the same
33:54
legal address in a business center on
33:56
Presnya.
33:58
Second, the owners of two of the companies are connected
34:00
through the company Dealsa.
34:02
This firm was sold by the owner of CityStroyService,
34:04
Denis Galagan, to the owner of
34:06
Navigation Solutions, Alexander Tsurkan.
34:09
It is believed that Tsurkan's firm
34:10
with Igor Chaika's help won a 15-year
34:13
contract for waste removal in Moscow
34:15
worth 43 billion rubles. Dealsa, by the way, was
34:18
registered in the same business center in
34:20
Moscow.
34:21
Moreover, all four companies effectively
34:22
use the same staff
34:25
and do not even try to hide it.
34:27
On job websites, they advertise each other’s
34:30
vacancies. The architect of
34:31
CityStroyService
34:33
creates projects for BalticStroyCompany
34:35
and Igor Chaika’s Innovations of Light.
34:37
The same developer built
34:39
websites for all four companies
34:41
in the cartel.
34:42
That same developer also made brochures for
34:44
Tyretsky Salt Mine
34:45
and even a website for a Greek hotel:
34:47
an asset of Igor’s brother, Artem Chaika.
34:51
Thus,
34:52
in various combinations,
34:54
four companies that appeared unrelated at first glance
34:57
jointly took part in and won
34:59
14 tenders worth more than 2
35:02
and a half billion rubles.
35:04
This scheme clearly has all the hallmarks
35:06
of a criminal
35:08
cartel conspiracy.
35:09
— These four companies came to the auctions
35:11
working in coordination with one another; one of them
35:13
would win, while the others staged fake competition.
35:16
At the same time, we know of at least 14
35:18
such episodes. These very same companies share the same
35:20
addresses, employees,
35:22
directors, and even the same
35:24
website designer.
35:25
And in the tender for landscaping
35:27
at Ostankino, they submitted applications
35:29
from the same IP address and at exactly
35:30
the same time.
35:32
The Federal Antimonopoly Service has already extended
35:34
the review period several times over the cartel-collusion complaint.
35:36
There are no results.
35:46
But Igor Chaika’s business is booming.
35:49
In May 2015, the Vienna Philharmonic
35:52
under the direction of Riccardo Muti
35:53
gave a concert in an unexpected place:
35:56
the town of Klin in the Moscow region.
35:58
This festival was Igor Chaika’s triumph.
36:02
Igor was an unpaid adviser to the region’s governor,
36:04
Andrei Vorobyov, on cultural affairs
36:06
.
36:07
His responsibilities included projects such as
36:10
creating logos and brand books for towns around Moscow,
36:14
sound zoning for the town of Klin,
36:16
the restoration of country estates,
36:18
holding weekend fairs and
36:20
celebrations in honor of Orthodox saints.
36:25
Here is how Igor Chaika described his work in an interview
36:28
with TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel) during the festival:
36:31
— In 2014, we managed to attract
36:33
more than 800 million rubles in off-budget investment
36:37
and many festivals, many parks
36:39
that opened in the Moscow region
36:41
were created, among other things,
36:42
with off-budget funds.
36:44
— And what share was your own money?
36:46
— Well, what difference does it make... Listen...
36:47
— Don’t be modest. — No, I will be modest,
36:51
because I am an Orthodox person,
36:54
and one must be humble.
36:55
In this video,
36:56
the humble Igor Chaika boards a helicopter.
37:00
As if to emphasize the special status of their
37:02
young boss, the security guards worry
37:05
about his safety.
37:18
Even less humble is the special motorcade
37:21
that accompanies the young official
37:23
on his trips around the Moscow region.
37:26
Sometimes Igor Chaika
37:28
drives the car himself.
37:29
He even gives his older brother
37:31
a ride on business.
37:34
Before his appointment, Igor
37:35
Chaika said that he wanted to go into government.
37:38
To clear the way for him, they even fired
37:40
the deputy governor for culture.
37:42
But a year and a half later, on July 20,
37:45
Igor Chaika left his adviser post,
37:47
explaining that he had been unable to give up
37:50
his assets.
37:52
And besides building parks,
37:54
Igor has an entire network of industrial
37:56
companies.
37:57
According to its charter, Aqua Solid
37:58
deals in chemicals, but
38:00
in reality
38:01
it owns a large concrete production facility.
38:03
Visual Technologies
38:05
makes road signs and plaques.
38:07
And in 2014, Igor’s company T-Industry
38:11
bought from Russian Railways (RZD) 50% minus two shares of
38:13
the concrete-sleeper manufacturer Beteltrans
38:17
for 3 billion rubles at a rigged
38:19
auction.
38:22
— In my view, this tender was purely formal,
38:23
because the two participants, A-Terminal
38:26
and T-Industry, are affiliated
38:28
and obviously form a cartel,
38:30
because they are managed by one
38:32
and the same entity — a Dutch trust.
38:35
No matter how much Igor wants to appear to be a modern
38:38
Western urbanist official,
38:40
he conducts his affairs in the same way as his
38:42
older brother Artem.
38:43
In dubious tenders, he
38:45
wins government
38:46
contracts. While Igor was staging a tender
38:49
for concrete, Artem bought
38:51
a crushed-stone production business from the same Russian Railways (RZD).
38:54
One may assume
38:56
that the brothers are in business together, but for Igor,
38:59
it seems, this is too delicate a question,
39:02
and he avoids answering it.
39:04
— Do you involve Artem Yuryevich in any way
39:06
in preparing the projects
39:09
that you are developing here,
39:10
perhaps connected with New Jerusalem (the monastery complex near Moscow)
39:12
or with the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (major Russian Orthodox monastery), and here — with Klin?
39:14
— Well... you know, I think that about the activities of
39:17
my brother, it would be better to ask my brother.
39:20
Ah... well... because you, it seems, approached me
39:22
for an interview about Tchaikovsky,
39:24
and have already moved on to completely different...
39:26
different topics.
39:27
— We’re simply starved… starved for information.
39:28
…not related to Pyotr Ilyich’s anniversary
39:30
and are basically taking this opportunity to ask
39:32
the questions that are of interest to
39:34
our... well... viewers, audience.
39:36
I understand, but...
39:37
as for my brother, of course,
39:39
it would be better to ask my brother.
39:42
In fact, Igor knows very well
39:44
how his older brother’s business is structured,
39:46
because he himself is part of that business.
39:49
For a year and a half, Igor worked
39:51
on Klin’s public image.
39:52
Thanks to his brother’s ties with this woman:
39:54
Alena Sokolskaya,
39:57
the head of the district.
39:59
Her husband, Alexander Kozlov, a former
40:02
deputy Moscow prosecutor and a person implicated in the case
40:04
about protection rackets for casinos.
40:06
The head of her administration, Eduard Kaplun,
40:08
the former prosecutor of Klin, is also implicated
40:11
in the gambling case.
40:12
Igor’s brother, Artem, appeared in the case
40:15
as the organizer of a criminal network.
40:17
There are other connections as well. Lawyer Elizaveta Berezina
40:21
is simultaneously a partner
40:23
in Igor’s Moscow law firm
40:24
and is taking part in bidding for a salt
40:26
deposit in Artem’s interests.
40:29
She is in fact the founder
40:31
of Galit LLC,
40:32
which provided fictitious
40:34
competition in the tender for
40:35
the Vorobyovskoye deposit. Artem’s company
40:38
in Switzerland, until June of this year,
40:40
belonged specifically to Igor.
40:42
Before that, the brothers’ lawyers worked with the son
40:44
of the former head of administration of the Prosecutor General’s Office
40:46
Nazir Khapsirokov.
40:48
To businessman Ponomaryov
40:49
Igor registers his stakes
40:51
in a construction company.
40:52
That same Ponomaryov transferred ships
40:54
out of the Verkhnelensk Shipping Company for Artem’s benefit.
40:56
As a result, Igor turns out to be part
40:59
of a huge system that involves
41:01
the entire leadership of the prosecutor’s office.
41:03
For example, prosecutors in Kaluga Region
41:05
helped Artem gain control
41:06
over salt deposits.
41:08
Prosecutors in Irkutsk Region helped seize the shipping company.
41:11
Together with the Lopatin family, Chaika runs
41:13
business in Greece; through the Lopatins, Chaika
41:15
is connected to the Tsapok gang in Krasnodar Krai,
41:17
where the prosecutor is a protégé
41:19
of Albina Kovalyova — Leonid Korzhinek.
41:21
Her protégés also safeguard the family’s interests
41:23
in Tomsk, Irkutsk, Murmansk, and other regions.
41:27
Witnesses say
41:28
that, using his connections, Artem flies
41:30
around the country and tells regional
41:32
prosecutors which criminal cases
41:34
to open and which to close.
41:36
— We have gone beyond the bounds of our usual
41:38
anti-corruption investigation,
41:40
because this is not just corruption,
41:41
there is robbery, murder, racketeering.
41:43
This system is beyond punishment, because it was
41:45
built by those who are supposed to punish.
41:47
So many people are involved in it
41:49
that the country’s top leadership
41:51
of course knows what is happening,
41:54
and there is such a thick file of kompromat (compromising material) on
41:56
Yury Yakovlevich Chaika that he is
41:58
completely controllable.
42:00
He does whatever he is told.
42:02
That is exactly what he is there for.