Translated material
Retired repairmen
The former prefect of the Southern District of Moscow and his deputy were arrested
Last Saturday, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow issued a warrant for the arrest of the former prefect of the Southern Administrative District (SAD) of the capital, Yuri Bulanov, and a day earlier, the same fate befell his deputy Vyacheslav Shcherbakov. The officials were detained in the same case - embezzlement of 23 million rubles allocated from the city budget for housing repairs. Details of the investigation have not yet been disclosed. According to unofficial information, the case of Messrs. Bulanov and Shcherbakov could become one of the “offshoots” of the scandalous epic of businessman Abesalom Gulordava, who this spring was put on the wanted list on suspicion of theft of about a billion rubles allocated from the capital budget for the same renovation of the housing stock.Investigators began to suspect the former leaders of the Southern Administrative District at the end of May, immediately after Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov decided to resign Yuri Bulanov. As the capital's mayor's office stated at the time, the prefect was dismissed "due to numerous comments that were made earlier." Shortly before this, as the mayor’s press secretary Sergei Tsoi noted, the prefect was declared “incompletely qualified for service.” At the same time, the first deputy prefect of the Southern Administrative District, Vyacheslav Shcherbakov, was also fired.
A day later, on the evening of May 29, employees of the FSB and the Main Investigation Department (GSU) at the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate raided the former officials’ home with searches. As reported by law enforcement agencies, these events took place as part of a case of embezzlement of 23 million rubles allocated from the city budget for major repairs of housing stock in the district. Some documents were confiscated from the ex-prefect, and the detectives allegedly did not find anything interesting from his former deputy. Searches were also carried out in the prefecture itself.
On June 12, as it turned out, a criminal case was opened under the article of the Criminal Code “misappropriation or embezzlement” personally against Messrs. Bulanov and Shcherbakova. After this, the former prefect was summoned several times for questioning, several subpoenas were sent to him, but he did not appear. At the same time, the ex-prefect’s lawyer Sergei Starovoitov said that Mr. Bulanov is in the Central Clinical Hospital, where he was hospitalized with a hypertensive crisis immediately after his resignation, and accused the investigation of dishonesty. “Either the person runs away from the hospital or does not show up for questioning,” the defense lawyer noted. “This is an artificial creation of a situation that will make it possible to declare that Bulanov is allegedly hiding.”
According to unofficial data, Vyacheslav Shcherbakov was also in the hospital all this time, but on July 1 he was detained. Already on July 2, with the approval of the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow, he was taken into custody. On the same day, Yuri Bulanov was again summoned for questioning at the State Investigative Directorate. According to his lawyer, the ex-prefect arrived to the investigator from the hospital, accompanied by operatives, at six in the evening and after a long interrogation, late at night, he was officially detained. And last Saturday, the Tver court decided to arrest Mr. Bulanov, agreeing with the opinion of the investigation that he could hide and put pressure on non-witnesses.
Yuri Bulanov was appointed to the post of prefect of the Southern Administrative District in July 2007. Before that, he held the positions of first deputy head of the Golovinsky district government, head of the Voikovsky district government of the Northern Administrative District, and in 2002 he was appointed to the post of first deputy prefect of the Southern Administrative District. After the dismissal of Mr. Bulanov, Georgy Smoleevsky became the new prefect of the district.
Investigators have not yet disclosed the details of the embezzlement case, in which Yuri Bulanov and Vyacheslav Shcherbakov were involved. According to unofficial data, a certain businessman also appears in it. According to one version, it could be the former general director of the state unitary enterprise “Directorate of the single customer “Chertanovo Severnoye” Alexey Spirin, accused of embezzlement of 33 million rubles. In May, his case was already sent to court.
According to another version, the case against the former leaders of the Southern Administrative District could arise during the scandalous investigation against businessman Abesalom Gulordava, who was recently put on the international wanted list. According to the capital's UBEP, formally holding the positions of general director of JSC ZHKH-Service and LLC ZHKH-Service, he organized a number of commercial structures that for a long time received contracts for carrying out repair work, landscaping and landscaping in 15 municipal districts of the capital. According to the investigation, most of the obligations of Mr. Gulordava’s structure were not actually fulfilled, but thanks to his connections, officials drew up fictitious acts of acceptance of work. Thus, according to investigators, about 1 billion rubles were stolen from the city budget. Mr. Gulordava himself managed to escape and was charged with fraud in absentia.