Sources in Russia's Federal Tax Service support anti-corruption group's accusations against ex-wife of top official

Sources in Russia's Federal Tax Service have confirmed to the newspaper Vedomosti that Olga Lopatina, the ex-wife of Deputy Attorney General Gennady Lopatin, did in fact co-own a company with the wife of Kushchevskaya mob boss Sergei Tsapok. Hours before this report, Lopatina claimed through the Attorney General's office that she co-owns nothing with anyone connected Tsapok's gang.

According to the government's registry of legal entities, Olga Lopatina and Nadezhda Staroverova (the wife of Alexander Staroverov, the former head of the Attorney General office's administration) both own a company called "Arline," which in turn owns half of the firm Sugar Kuban. The other half of that firm, which has an office in Kushchevskaya, reportedly belongs to the wives of Kushchevskaya gangsters Sergei Tsapok and Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz.

Vedomosti's sources in the Federal Tax Service say the date of birth, Moscow address, and personal tax reference number match the personal information of Olga Lopatina.

Lopatina is a key figure in a new investigation published by Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). According FBK, Lopatina not only co-owns a business with Tsapok's wife, but she also co-owns a resort in Greece with the son of Russia's Attorney General. FBK researchers believe that Lopatina's divorce from her husband is merely a ploy to allow her to hide her foreign assets, which she'd otherwise be required to declare as the wife of a state official. (In addition to Sugar Kuban and the hotel, FBK says she also owns a villa in Greece.)

On December 2, before Vedomosti published its report, Lopatina announced that she's never owned a business with representatives of a criminal group, saying she'd only learned of the company Sugar Kuban from FBK's investigation.

• Sergei Tsapok's criminal gang operated in the Kuban, where it carried out extortions and violent takeovers of different businesses. The group was exposed in 2010, after a mass murder in the town of Kushchevskaya, where 12 people (including four children) were killed. Tsapok, who said he had the farmer and his family slaughtered because he interfered with the mafia's business, was sentenced to life in prison. The mob boss confessed that he wanted his victim to suffer and to witness the suffering of his family. While in jail, Tsapok died of heart failure in July 2014.
• On December 1, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, run by opposition activist Alexey Navalny, published a large investigation into the illicit actions of Russian Attorney General Yuri Chaika's family. According to the report, the Attorney General's son, Artem, reportedly owns a home in Switzerland and a villa in Greece. FBK says he began his wealth by seizing control over a state enterprise.
• For more on FBK's report, see: Russia’s mafia state: Alexey Navalny’s group publishes startling revelations linking the Attorney General’s son to the mob