Translated material
Kutuzka for Kutuzov
The investigation of another case of defrauding housing construction investors has been completed
The Moscow prosecutor's office has transferred to court another criminal case regarding deception of co-investors in the construction of residential buildings. This time, the leaders of the capital's Investproekt LLC will be in the dock - general director Gennady Kutuzov, commercial director Konstantin Shurinov and cashier Elena Zhuravleva. This LLC collected money from citizens wishing to purchase apartments in Podolsk near Moscow. According to the investigation, a significant part of Investproekt’s clients were ultimately left without housing and without money. The investigation estimates the damage from the company’s actions at 55 million rubles. 68 people were recognized as victims.A criminal case against Investproekt LLC was initiated in August last year, even before the start of mass spontaneous protests by defrauded housing construction co-investors. Applications from clients of this company began to be received by the Moscow prosecutor's office in June 2005. After conducting an inspection, investigators almost immediately noticed signs of fraud in the activities of Investproekt (later the case was reclassified under another article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - embezzlement or embezzlement on an especially large scale). The company itself, however, had already disappeared by this time - the office was closed, all documents were taken away and, as investigators assume, destroyed, and the managers went on the run. However, based on the documents left in the hands of the deceived citizens, the investigation was able to find out how the construction pyramid works.
As the prosecutor's office established, the management of Investproekt was active in the period from January 2004 to May 2005, trying to negotiate an investment in the construction of residential buildings with a number of construction companies. True, they managed to implement only one project. According to investigators, the company bought the ownership of apartments in two residential buildings that were then just under construction on Teplichnaya Street in Podolsk near Moscow from the developer ZAO Tex-P, whose subcontractor was Trek LLC. At the same time, the management of Investproject placed advertisements offering apartments at the construction sites themselves and on the Internet, promising housing prices even lower than those of the developer himself.
As a result, as the investigation established, Messrs. Kutuzov and Shurinov concluded more than 800 investment agreements for a total amount of over 55 million rubles, of which more than 35 million rubles. appropriated to themselves. At the same time, they received money from clients - both individuals and legal entities - in cash through their cash desk, without completing any documents. In addition, as the prosecutor's office found out, some apartments were sold two or even three times.
The first, in the fall of 2005, investigators were able to detain Gennady Kutuzov, who was hiding in a rented apartment. At the same time, the prosecutor's office also brought charges against the company's cashier, Elena Zhuravleva, believing that she knew about the criminal activities of her management. Considering that the woman in the company was a hired and “forced” employee, they only took a written undertaking from her not to leave. For a long time, detectives were unable to find commercial director Shurinov, and at first he was even put on the international wanted list, believing that he could have gone abroad. However, in December last year, he was discovered quite by accident in the Central Moscow Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital, where the businessman was undergoing an annual preventive examination (several years ago, psychiatrists diagnosed Mr. Shurinov with “catatonic stupor” - this disease usually precedes schizophrenia and is expressed in partial immobility muscles). Doctors considered it possible to carry out investigative actions with him, and after the examination found him sane, he was arrested in March 2006.
So far, 68 people have been recognized as victims in the Investproekt case. But the investigation does not exclude that there will be many more of them - many deceived co-investors live in other regions, and it is not easy for them to come to Moscow for interrogations. As reported by the prosecutor's office, based on new applications received from victims, the cases will be separated into separate proceedings, for which the leaders of Investproject will then appear in court again.
In addition, the investigation continues to check for involvement in the deception of shareholders and the developer of houses in Podolsk - the Tex-P and Trek companies. “Track” appears in another scandalous criminal case - about an accident on the Zamoskvoretskaya line of the capital’s metro in March of this year. Then, when installing an advertising board in the Leningradskoe Highway area, the builders drove several reinforced concrete piles into the underground metro tunnel, into which a passing train carrying passengers crashed. As it turned out, the Trek company was a subcontractor for the installation of the ill-fated shield. True, charges were then brought against the managers of another construction company, Polyus-M, which was responsible for carrying out the work.