Kazurin's bribe: Aksenov promised not to throw corrupt officials out of the helicopter. Crimean tragicomedy with deep landings Oleg Viktorovich Kazarin submitted an application

The Kiev District Court of Simferopol sentenced former Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea Oleg Kazurin to 11.5 years in prison. He was found guilty of receiving 27 million rubles in bribes for resolving issues related to the use of funds from the federal target program for the development of Crimea. The case of the most notorious corruption scandal on the peninsula was considered for almost 1.5 years. Let us remind you how it happened.

Russian Oleg Kazurin joined the Russian-controlled Crimean government in January 2016. Before that, since 2014, he headed the department of municipal services of Sevastopol. He also managed to serve as deputy governor of Sevastopol for several days, but was unexpectedly transferred to the Council of Ministers, where a new staff position was created especially for him among Sergei Aksenov’s deputies.

Kazurin was entrusted with overseeing the implementation of the “Federal Target Program for the Development of Crimea and Sevastopol.” But he was able to hold on to his post for only about a year - in December 2016 he was dismissed for “systematic failure to fulfill instructions and government tasks.” And after 1.5 months, the ex-official was detained by employees of the Crimean main directorate of the Russian Investigative Committee. This is how he became involved in the loudest corruption scandal in recent years.

Housing for displaced people for a kickback

On the day of his arrest, Oleg Kazurin was planning to fly out of Crimea on business. In the operational video, he was taken out of Simferopol airport with one suitcase.

The former Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea was accused of receiving a bribe of 27 million rubles from a construction company to resolve the issue.

“From August to December 2016, the suspect received through an intermediary part of a previously agreed bribe in the amount of 27 million rubles for facilitating, by virtue of his official position, the selection of one of the construction companies as the only supplier when concluding a contract for the construction of housing in Crimea, as well as general patronage of the company during the execution of this contract,” stated the Sledkom.

Crimean and Russian media reported that we are talking about a contract for the construction of two houses for displaced people from the Cementnaya Slobodka area in Kerch worth 246.5 million rubles. 83 families were subject to resettlement for the construction of the Tavrida highway.

As it turned out, these apartments turned out to be unsuitable for habitation. Many settlers did not want to settle there.

Record sentence and tens of millions of fines

Kazurin was placed under arrest, where he remained during the investigation and trial of the case - about a year and a half. Court sessions were held behind closed doors. As a result, the ex-official was sentenced:

“Finally assign Oleg Viktorovich Kazurin a sentence of 11 years and 6 months of imprisonment in a maximum security correctional colony with a fine of 56 million rubles,” - Crimean media judge Victor Mozhelyansky.

This sentence turned out to be one of the most severe in Crimea in recent years. In terms of the total term of imprisonment and fine, it exceeded even court verdicts in political cases of “Crimean terrorists” (with the exception of Oleg Sentsov) and “saboteurs.”

Oleg Kazarin did not admit guilt. His lawyer Albert Eremeev told reporters that the ex-official would challenge the verdict on appeal.

"Self-cleaning process"

The criminal trial against Kazurin began with the initiative Sergei Aksenov. He told the media that he handed over his ex-deputy to law enforcement agencies when he was working in the government. The head of the Council of Ministers called this a process of self-purification.

“The work against Mr. Kazurin was already underway at that time, and not only him, but also a number of officials of the capital construction service. There are still questions for individual officials. I assure you that the issue is not over yet, this is not the last detention. I cannot divulge the secret of the investigation, but I assure you that the situation is under control and this process is the result of a lot of joint work between the executive authorities and law enforcement agencies. The work will continue, no one will escape punishment, everyone is equal before the law. We are taking measures for self-cleaning,” Aksenov said.

Oleg Kazurin was considered a man Oleg Belaventsev- one of the curators of the “Crimean spring” and the former plenipotentiary representative of the Russian President in Crimea. They worked together at the Russian OJSC Slavyanka. At the time of Kazurin’s arrest, Belaventsev had already been transferred to work in the North Caucasus Federal District. But Belaventsev’s people still tried to influence the course of Kazurin’s case, the Russian Novaya Gazeta reported.

“Both Kazurin and Aksenov were previously considered to be people acting in the interests of the former presidential envoy to Crimea Oleg Belaventsev. According to Novaya Gazeta, Belaventsev’s people tried to “get” Kazurin “off the hook” (it is no coincidence that a day passed between the moment of his arrest and the ICR report), but to no avail,” the publication wrote.

According to activists and observers of the process, the removal of Oleg Kazurin from power should be regarded as Aksenov’s step towards getting rid of those watching and an attempt to establish sole power in Crimea.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Kazurin, accused of bribery, was known as an unscrupulous official even during his work in Sevastopol

Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Crimea Oleg Kazurin was detained on suspicion of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale. According to the investigation, the official received a bribe in the amount of 27 million rubles in several installments between August and December. His ex-boss, the head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksenov, contributed to the arrest of the bribe-taker.

Oleg Kazurin. Photo: Press service of the Head of the Republic of Crimea

This afternoon, on the official portal of the Investigative Committee of Russia, a message appeared about the detention of the former deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea, but without indicating the name and surname of the suspect. It is not difficult to guess that we are talking about Oleg Kazurin, because it was he who was listed in this position until December 2016.

According to the investigation, Kazurin, through an intermediary, received several “payments” from an unknown construction company from August to December. The official took “payment” for assistance in choosing a single developer when concluding contracts for housing construction on the peninsula. The former Deputy Prime Minister estimated the monopolization of the construction market in Crimea at 27 million rubles.

The high-profile arrest was personally facilitated by the head of the republic, Sergei Aksenov, who admitted that he had caught his ex-subordinate in “dirty games” even before his dismissal.

“In November, I discovered signs of a crime being committed under a number of articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation by Mr. Kazurin. The Anti-Corruption Committee was tasked with conducting an audit of a number of areas of Oleg Kazurin’s activities. Most of the materials were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee, and the Federal Security Service of Russia back in November-December,” admitted the head of the region.

The materials collected by Aksenov became the reason for the detention of Kazurin, who was fired in December 2016 for failure to fulfill his official duties and state tasks. This is how Sergei Aksenov interpreted his decision to dismiss Deputy Prime Minister at the end of last year.

In addition, the head of the Republic of Crimea noted that this is not the first high-profile arrest in the region in this case - new arrests of those involved in the corruption scheme are coming.

“The process is not over yet. This is not the last arrest. I cannot reveal the secret of the investigation, but I assure you that the situation is under complete control, and this detention is the result of a great deal of joint work between the executive authorities and law enforcement agencies. The work will continue, no one will escape punishment,” Aksenov assured.

The head of the peninsula also said that it is necessary to fight corruption more efficiently, and has already instructed his subordinates to develop effective ways to combat dishonest officials, but he did not specify which ones. “Explanatory work should motivate people to the fact that the law must be observed. I read part of the speech of the President of the Philippines, who said that he threw one corrupt official out of a helicopter. The method is probably effective, but it is not applicable for us,” said Sergei Aksenov.

While the investigative committee remains silent, the Crimean media received information from unnamed sources that the same unknown construction company from which Kazarin collected bribes could be the well-known company “KRECH-15” of Roman Lukichev, which was dubbed the Crimean grief a few years ago. The company, which has been operating in Crimea since Ukrainian times, is known primarily for its “ghost projects”, and also for the fact that it has repeatedly managed to fail government orders. According to the publication Argumenty Nedeli-Kerch, the intermediary who transferred the money to Kazurin could have been one of the deputy heads of the Kerch administration responsible for construction.

By the way, the ex-deputy prime minister could never boast of being particularly popular. His first problems arose when he was director of the municipal services department of Sevastopol. It was during his work that Sevastopol residents most actively complained about the work of public utility workers. Representative of Business Russia and member of the All-Russian Popular Front Oleg Nikolaev was surprised by Kazurin’s move from municipal to regional officials. “Of course, it was nice that we were heard and Kazurin no longer works in Sevastopol, but the fact that he essentially went for a promotion was surprising, to put it mildly,” Nikolaev said.

By the way, it was Kazurin’s activities that served as the impetus for 22 thousand Sevastopol residents to turn to Vladimir Putin in the summer of 2015. Then residents of the seaside city complained about a huge number of violations in the work of the administration. The results of the appeal to the president were not long in coming - a state audit revealed 170 violations. As a result, several officials said goodbye to their positions, including Kazurin, who for some reason received a promotion instead of punishment.

The intermediary who handed over the bribe to the official has already been issued a recognizance not to leave, and Kazurin himself has been detained and is giving evidence to investigators. The maximum punishment that an ex-official can expect under Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Receiving a bribe through an intermediary on an especially large scale”) is up to 15 years in prison.

A high-profile criminal case against the former deputy chairman of the government of the Republic of Crimea Oleg Kazurin, which caused a public outcry, was hidden from the public.

Judge of the Kyiv District Court of Simferopol Viktor Mozhelyansky decided to close the entire process, which could have given the media and residents of the republic a lot of scandalous information about the morals of the elite of Crimea.

Mozhelyansky’s assistant told ForPost that the trial in Kazurin’s case will be conducted behind closed doors. The reason for this is not given, since “such information is not disclosed.”

According to TASS, a petition for a closed hearing of the case was filed by the victim, whose name is also not disclosed; he allegedly “fears revenge and threats from the family of the former official.”

At the same time, the state prosecutor, an employee of the prosecutor's office, supported the closure of the trial, and Oleg Kazurin's defense objected to this.

There is an opinion that the victim’s petition was staged so that the information that Kazurin will voice during the trial - about who, how, where, how many, to whom in the corridors of the Crimean government - does not become public knowledge.

As ForPost wrote, on January 30, in the Kiev District Court of Simferopol, the former Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Republic Oleg Kazurin, was in the dock.

He is accused of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale, money laundering and fraud using his official position.

Before his appointment to the Council of Ministers of Crimea, he was the director of the department of municipal agriculture of Sevastopol and, and after that he became an ally of Sergei Aksenov, who invited him to join him.

How, from August to December 2016, Kazurin received through an intermediary part of the pre-agreed bribe amount in the amount of 27 million rubles. This is how much he valued his services in facilitating the selection of one of the companies as a contractor for the construction of residential buildings in Kerch. Kazurin also promised to patronize this company during its execution of the municipal contract.

The investigation established the involvement of Oleg Kazurin in other crimes. For example, in the summer of 2016, in order to launder money received as a bribe, he used part of it to buy a garage and an apartment for his relative.

In January 2017, Kazurin, for allegedly providing assistance in obtaining government contracts for the construction of facilities in Crimea, demanded that the businessman buy and transfer into his ownership a Lexus RX350 car and non-residential premises with an area of ​​at least 200 square meters in Moscow.

However, the businessman turned to law enforcement officers, and the accused failed to complete his plan, the press service of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for the Republic of Crimea reported.

The criminal case against the former Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea, which was investigated by employees of the Investigative Committee, was transferred to the Kiev District Court on December 28, 2017. The presiding judge was Viktor Mozhelyansky.

Vlasta Pidpalaya, Nikolay Svedski

15.02.2017 14:04

According to Notes sources, Sledkom operatives detained the former Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea and the former head of the Sevastopol municipal services department on the morning of February 14. He is accused of taking a bribe on an especially large scale. Its total size could reach 100 million rubles, and Kazurin has already received a quarter of this amount. The goal was to select the “right” house construction contractor at a budget expense. According to preliminary information, we are talking about houses for displaced people in Kerch, the commissioning of which was disrupted. Now the main intrigue is: will his patron Oleg Belaventsev be able to save Kazurin from prison, and will anyone else be detained in this case - interrogations are already underway in the Crimean government.

The mediator in the Kazurin case has also been detained, our sources report. 27 million rubles - this is the amount he managed to transfer to the official.

Oleg Kazurin was dismissed from the post of Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Crimea on December 29, 2016. As “Notes” already reported, this dismissal ended the hardware struggle for Federal Targeted Program money in Crimea. “We have almost the last place [in terms of spending budget funds] taken by the block supervised by Oleg Viktorovich Kazurin,” said the head of the Crimean government, Sergei Aksenov, on December 30. “Yesterday I decided to fire him, including for the systematic failure to fulfill my instructions, failure to fulfill state tasks in terms of quality deadlines and everything else,” RIA Crimea quotes Aksenov as saying.

Sources of Notes then clarified that Kazurin was removed from his post for failing to meet the deadlines for implementing the Federal Target Program. And in particular, the delay in the resettlement of Kerch residents, whose houses were in the security zone of the Kerch Bridge.

According to our interlocutors in the Crimean government, before the holidays, searches were carried out in the offices of Kazurin and the head of the Capital Construction Service, Ivan Poida - now both premises have been sealed by employees of the Sledkom and the FSB. Kazurin no longer controls the spending of more than 657 billion rubles received by Crimea for development.

Let us recall that before moving to the peninsula, Oleg Kazurin headed the Solnechnogorsk branch of Slavyanka OJSC, the notorious housing and communal services operator of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Kazurin’s boss at Slavyanka was Oleg Belaventsev. When the latter was appointed plenipotentiary representative to the KFO, Kazurin headed the department of municipal services of Sevastopol. On January 19, 2016, he left the government of Sergei Menyailo and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Crimea, where he oversaw housing and communal services, transport, construction and work under the Federal Target Program.

The general contract for the construction of new housing for residents of the Kerch Cement Slobodka, whose houses were in the sanitary protection zone of the construction of the Kuban-Crimea bridge, was awarded to Kitezh LLC. RUB 246.5 million was allocated for the resettlement of 8 houses housing 83 families. Construction of two three-story houses began in the summer of 2016. People were supposed to be resettled by November, but they didn’t have time. At the ONF forum in Yalta, Vladimir Putin reminded the Crimean Prime Minister that houses in Kerch should be commissioned, and advised Sergei Aksenov to install webcams in his office to monitor the progress of construction.

In early November, the peninsula authorities removed Kitezh from the project “for systematic violations of work schedules.” Roman Lukichev’s KRECH-15 company was appointed as the new contractor for the resettlement of Kerch residents. Previously, this developer was awarded a contract to resettle residents of dilapidated houses in his native Feodosia, the premature report of which turned into a scandal.

The delivery of houses in Kerch was scheduled for December, but the new contractor did not make it in time (now they are promised to be completed in March). Responsibility for all this fell on Kazurin.

The former Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison for bribery, fraud and preparation for it.

Original of this material
© Kommersant.Ru, 06.22.2018, Crimean official was convicted as part of the program, Photo: "Crimea.Realities"

Vadim Nikiforov

Kiev District Court of Simferopol, recognizing the former Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea Oleg Kazurin guilty of taking a bribe and fraud, sentenced him to 11 years and six months in a maximum security colony for assisting one of the companies in obtaining a government contract for the construction of houses in Kerch. Money for them was allocated within the framework of the federal target program (FTP) for the socio-economic development of Crimea until 2020. Oleg Kazurin's defense intends to appeal the verdict.

The court found Oleg Kazurin guilty of receiving a particularly large bribe through an intermediary, money laundering and preparation for fraud committed using his official position (Article 290, part 6; Article 174.1, part 4, paragraph b; Art. 30, part 1; article 159, part 4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Having sentenced Mr. Kazurin to 11.5 years in prison, the court fined the ex-official 56 million rubles, prohibiting him from holding leadership positions in state and municipal authorities for ten years after his imprisonment.

FSB and Investigative Committee officers detained Oleg Kazurin at Simferopol airport on February 15, 2017, before flying to Moscow. The next day he was arrested by the court and has since been in jail. The investigation established that from August to December 2016, Mr. Kazurin, being the Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea, received 27 million rubles through an intermediary. from one of the construction companies. In return, he contributed to the selection of this developer as the sole supplier when concluding a contract (the bribe was approximately 10% of its amount) for the construction of residential buildings in Kerch. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor in law enforcement agencies, we are talking about two three-story buildings that began to be built in the summer of 2016 for migrants from Cementnaya Slobodka: their houses were in the construction zone of the Crimean Bridge and were subject to demolition.

The fraud was discovered during an audit of the use of budget funds, appointed due to the delay in construction implementation. The facilities were supposed to be completed in November 2016, but then construction was extended until December 15. However, in October, a month and a half before the planned completion date of construction, it turned out that only pits had been dug in place of the houses. The inspection materials were transferred to law enforcement agencies, the construction contractor was replaced, and the houses were completed.

Also during the investigation, other facts were established. Thus, an entrepreneur contacted law enforcement agencies and said that Oleg Kazurin in January 2017 demanded that he purchase and transfer ownership of a Lexus car and non-residential premises in Moscow. In return, he promised to assist the businessman in obtaining two government contracts for the construction of facilities in Crimea. This episode gave rise to accusations of preparation for fraud in the case.

Mr. Kazurin worked as Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea from January 16 to December 30, 2016. He oversaw the implementation of the Federal Target Program for the socio-economic development of Crimea. Before that, he was director of the department of municipal services of Sevastopol under Governor Sergei Menyailo. Before his appointment to Crimea, Mr. Kazurin worked as director of the Solnechnogorsk branch OJSC "Slavyanka" and was considered the creature of the ex-presidential envoy to the Crimean Federal District Oleg Belaventsev(in 2012–2014 he was the general director of Slavyanka OJSC).

The sentence could have been harsher, but when making its decision, the court took into account that Oleg Kazurin is a reserve colonel who participated in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident and has state and departmental awards.

Lawyer Albert Eremeev told Kommersant that the defense intends to appeal the verdict.