Colonel Zakharchenko
The Nikulinsky Court of Moscow involved as a third party the last wife of the father of the former Interior Ministry Colonel Zakharchenko, Elena Zakharchenko, to participate in the process of the next lawsuit of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The department demands that the property of the security official and his relatives worth almost 50 million rubles be turned into state revenue. The woman insists that during the search, her personal 3 million rubles and 100 euros were illegally confiscated from her. Now they want to confiscate the cash. Dmitry Zakharchenko himself actively spoke in court, demanding either to dismiss the case or to abandon claims against him.
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Elena Zakharchenko, who previously had the surname Sevostyanenko, came personally to the trial, which had already twice (in 2017 and 2019) confiscated the property of Zakharchenko and his relatives. She took with her a folder with documents that she was going to operate in the process. But before that, it came down to it.
Lawyer Valeria Tunikova, representing the interests of the main defendant, immediately filed a petition to admit the woman as a third party. She said that even before her marriage to Viktor Zakharchenko, operatives during a search on April 15, 2017, of Sevostyanenko’s house in the city of Bataysk, Rostov Region, seized personal money – 100 euros and 3 million rubles. They were kept in the closet. “Sevostyanenko immediately stated that her personal funds were seized,” the lawyer said.
good deal
The woman herself readily shared information about the origin of money. She told Business FM that, having moved from Uzbekistan to Russia, she became an individual entrepreneur and was engaged in the purchase and resale of land in the Rostov region. Elena Sevostyanenko began to conduct such a business in 2008, when, according to her, Dmitry Zakharchenko’s father, Viktor Zakharchenko, she “did not even know closely.”
“If you look at the extract in the Unified State Register of Real Estate, then I have a lot (plots). I’ll buy it there, then in Peshkovo, then in Kagolnyak. Here you can see where I bought it, where I sold it, ”she showed the documents.
One of the deals turned out to be very profitable. According to Elena, in 2011 in the city of Azov, she bought 4.5 acres with a house on a summer cottage for only 50 thousand rubles. And four years later, the price skyrocketed – construction of the Azov-Rostov-on-Don highway began there. As a result, the woman managed to bargain with the contractor for 6.5 million rubles, although she was offered much less.
“The Ministry of Transport bought it from me. I did an independent review. I fought for him for a very long time. The initial estimate was 3.5 million rubles. I stood until the end, when there was already a road outside the windows. I made a registration and made sure that I was paid 6.5 million rubles, ”she said. The buyer was a certain Alexander Gladun, acting on behalf of the contractor.
Elena decided to invest the proceeds in the construction of a new house, having bought a plot in Bataysk in the same 2015 in a prestigious area of 3 acres, poured the foundation and was already planning to build housing, agreed on laying communications, when, according to the woman, her plans were suddenly interfered with by employees Investigative Committee. “They came and took the money in broad daylight. I was horrified,” the defendant recalled.
Judge Olga Kazakova granted the petition for the entry of Elena Zakharchenko into the case as a third party. However, she did not have a chance to speak on February 28 – the hearing went to consider other requests of the defendants.
What else do they want to confiscate
In addition to the former deputy head of the Department “T” of the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (GUEB and PC), ex-colonel Zakharchenko, there are four of them: his father Viktor Zakharchenko, former official wife Yana Saratovtseva, former common-law wife Marina Semynina and half-sister of a security official Irina Taymurova.
It was near the latter in a non-residential apartment on Lomonosovsky Prospekt in the fall of 2016 that the security forces found almost 9 billion rubles in different currencies, which in 2017, together with other property, the court turned into state revenue.
Now, the prosecutor’s office requires the ex-colonel zakharchenko’s relatives to withdraw ownership of two apartments in a prestigious district of the capital on Vernadsky Avenue (each with an area of more than 100 square meters) and two parking spaces.
Their half-sister, a security officer, bought them at the stage of excavation in houses, but the houses were never erected. The agency also asks to confiscate a pair of cufflinks, a collectible coin, as well as a number of jewelry: earrings, pendants, bracelets, rings, chains, as well as elite Swiss watches from Ulysse Nardin, Cvstos Challenge and Rolex.
Jewelry was confiscated from the former women of Colonel Zakharchenko, and, according to the prosecutor’s office, they were purchased with the corruption proceeds of the security official. He has already been convicted twice for bribery and received a total of 16 years in prison with a fine of 0.5 billion rubles.
In the Nikulinsky court, the representatives of the women insisted that the ex-colonel Zakharchenko’s had nothing to do with the purchase of the “jewelry”. So Saratovtseva’s lawyer Sergei Zvyagin said that the jewelry seized from his client in March 2015 was bought by her at her own expense already 2.5 years after her divorce from Zakharchenko. And she received 6.2 million rubles found at her house from her new lover, a certain Mikhail Zadorin. “The Investigative Committee interrogated him in 2019,” the lawyer said and demanded to request a report from the Investigative Committee.
New – well-forgotten old
He also said that prosecutors demand to withdraw part of the “jewelry” “in the second round.” For example, the equivalent of the cost of a ring bought in the USA in 2013 by the American brand Jacob & Co.
In 2019, the prosecutor’s office really already tried to withdraw from the ex-wife of Zakharchenko the cost of jewelry bought for 320 thousand dollars by Colonel Zakharchenko for his wife in the United States. At the same time, jewelry was not imported into the Russian Federation at all, they were sent on behalf of Saratovtseva to Monaco, where she lived at that time. At first, the court denied the request. However, later, in 2020, the Moscow City Court satisfied this requirement, ruling to recover from the defendants the ruble equivalent of the cost of the “jewelry” on the day the decision was executed.
At the February 28 hearing, the defendants’ lawyers stated that the prosecutor’s claim was full of inaccuracies. Thus, lawyer Valeria Tunnikova drew the attention of the court to the fact that a Rolex watch was found and seized from her trustee Marina Semynina during a search on December 15, 2017. At the same time, prosecutors are asking for a product of the same brand, which according to the description is completely different from them, to turn into state revenue. The lawyer asked to demand documents and a check for the watch from the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia in order to “identify” them.
The judge granted the request. She also went to meet the defendants and asked the UK documents for the purchase by Irina Taimurova of two apartments and parking spaces in houses under construction, in order to clarify the year of their purchase.
“Defrauded Investor”
Colonel Zakharchenko himself, who participated in the process via video link from the pre-trial detention center, demanded to check whether the apartments exist “in nature”. “Because it’s a mythical object, like an object on the moon,” he said, calling his sister “a defrauded real estate investor.” “Therefore, the prosecutor’s office did not ask to withdraw this property in 2017,” the defendant noted.
The ex-colonel zakharchenko was indignant at the fact that he was the defendant in the lawsuit, although they were not trying to seize anything from him personally this time: “Please exclude me from the list of defendants or let them explain what requirements are for me!”
But the court rejected the request, listening to the arguments of the prosecutor. She explained that Zakharchenko is the key defendant because all his property was registered in the name of his relatives. “Semynina was never my relative. Then let Semynin or me be expelled!” colonel zakharchenko tried to retort.
He was echoed by the lawyer, in whose opinion, the prosecutor’s office unreasonably expanded the circle of persons whose property it decided to confiscate. “According to the law, the property can be confiscated from a civil servant, his minor children or spouse,” said Valeria Tunnikova.
And the colonel zakharchenko himself, at the end of the meeting, petitioned for the termination of the case due to the expiration of a three-year statute of limitations. He noted that the Prosecutor General’s Office, which supervised the investigation of his criminal case, knew about the property of his relatives six years ago, but did not file any claims. The judge promised to decide on this motion when she decides the case. Due to the need to receive answers to requests sent to the UK, the proceedings were postponed until March 28.