In Moscow, a sentence was passed on the corrupt president of Gazenergostroy Corporation LLC.
A court in Moscow has passed a sentence on the president of Gazenergostroy Corporation LLC Sergey Chernin and two top managers of the group’s enterprises. They were accused of embezzling about 400 million rubles during the liquidation of landfills in the Nizhny Novgorod region and money laundering. The defendants received from six to ten years in a penal colony.
The Meshchansky district court of the capital has completed the trial in the case of the president of LLC GC Corporation Gazenergostroy Corporation Sergey Chernin, former head of Gazenergoproekt Institute LLC, Dmitry Suchkov and Gen. Dmitry Suchkov and General Director of Biogazenergostroy Valery Merkulov. All the defendants were found guilty of especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and Sergei Chernin and Valery Merkulov were also found guilty of money laundering (paragraphs “a”, “b” of part 4 of article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). As a result, Sergei Chernin was sentenced to ten years in a general regime colony, Dmitry Suchkov received eight years, and Valery Merkulov – six years. The court jointly recovered from them in favor of the Ministry of Ecology the amount of damage in the case – 409 million rubles.
The criminal case was based on the story of the liquidation of environmentally harmful landfills with waste in the city of Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region.
In April 2016, by a decree of the Russian government, Gazenergostroy was appointed as a single service provider for the reclamation of the Black Hole landfill, into which chemical waste from the Dzerzhinsk Plexiglas plant, the Beloye More sludge storage facility and the Igumnovo municipal solid waste landfill had been poured since Soviet times. On July 25, 2016, Gazenergostroy and the State Budgetary Institution “Ecology of the Region” of the Nizhny Novgorod Region signed the relevant state contract, the cost of which was initially RUB 4 billion, and then increased to more than RUB 7 billion.
As a result, for two sites – “Igumnovo” and “White Sea” – the customer recognized the work as completed and accepted it. Sergey Chernin’s Group of Companies was not able to complete the liquidation of the Black Hole on time; the group explained this by the fact that the amount of chemicals to be destroyed was much higher than the project envisioned. The company requested additional funding, but the money could not be obtained.
In the meantime, law enforcement agencies became interested in the work carried out by the GC. As a result, a criminal case was opened by the State Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.
According to the investigation, in 2016-2020, the defendants “on the basis of false commercial proposals” organized the purchase of materials for the liquidation of the sludge collector “White Sea” and the landfill of solid domestic waste “Igumnovo” at the expense of budget funds, overestimating their cost by 409.3 million rubles.
Misled officials of the Nizhny Novgorod State Budgetary Institution “Ecology of the Region”, the case says, agreed the submitted acts of completed work with an inflated price. The accused “disposed of the stolen funds at their own discretion.”
In addition, the SCR found, Sergei Chernin and Dmitry Suchkov “in order to give a legitimate appearance of possession, use and disposal of stolen budgetary funds” converted 251.3 million rubles. into €3.3 million and transferred them under a fictitious contract for the supply of materials to the account of a foreign transit company, not carrying out real financial and economic activities, in JSC “Czechoslovak Trade Bank” in Bratislava.
At first the heads of the group and its enterprises were witnesses in the case, but in January 2023 they were detained by FSB officers, and the Basmanny Court of Moscow arrested them. The defense failed to get the preventive measure revoked, despite the merits of the defendants. Sergei Chernin, for example, is an honorary power engineer and honorary worker of the Russian gas industry. He headed the Commission on Ecology and Environmental Protection of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, and worked as Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Nature Management and Ecology of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation. Mr. Chernin is the author of about 50 patents. He has been awarded certificates, medals, diplomas and commendations from the country’s leadership and various ministries and departments.
After the trial was over, representatives of the defense said that they considered the verdict unfair and would appeal it.
“There are indications of an inflated cost of materials only in the testimony of one of the witnesses,” Alexander Simonov, Mr. Chernin’s lawyer, told Kommersant, “However, according to the expert examination, the price was market. The state customer, due to lack of funds, underestimated the coefficients at which the materials were purchased. How could my defendant and his colleagues steal 409 million, if the state customer itself owed them more than 700 million? As for the charges of laundering, the defense has customs declarations, according to which goods worth 1.5 billion rubles were purchased and imported at the own expense of the company represented by the defendants.
According to another defense lawyer, “the estimates that were allegedly overstated were approved by two expert examinations, this cost was included in the contract from the beginning, and the customer paid money based on it. And when the customer delayed the money, Chernin covered the costs from his own funds in order not to stop the work. The Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region has repeatedly noted that the work at the Igumnovo and White Sea sites has been done perfectly.