The end of the year turned out to be very difficult for Russian customs officers: first, investigators came to search them, and soon after that, Lieutenant General Alexander Kizlyk, the head of the customs investigation department, ended up in the hands of law enforcement agencies. He was accused of aiding smugglers. During a search, Kizlyk was found in currency worth 78 million rubles, gold bars and a collection of luxury watches, and the general could not explain the source of this wealth. But it soon became clear that a high-ranking customs officer helped the wife of the Russian ambassador to Kenya to avoid punishment for currency smuggling... Lenta.ru found out the details of the high-profile story about the smugglers and their patrons.
Morning of the security forces
On the morning of Monday, December 23, it became known that employees of the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR), with the support of soldiers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia, were conducting searches in the bodies of the Federal Customs Service (FCS). According to Lenta.ru's source in law enforcement agencies, searches took place in the FCS investigation department, as well as at Vnukovo and Domodedovo customs. Investigators came to customs officers as part of a criminal case initiated under Part 3 of Article 285 (“Abuse of official powers resulting in grave consequences”) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Documents and electronic media were confiscated from FCS employees.
The colonel is not writing to anyone, the customs clearance is canceled
Today, the chiefs of the North-West Customs could be under arrest. But the FSB was prevented by the colonel. Now he is on a hunger strike. 47 news tells how the State Security attack ends if the domino principle does not work.
This party began at the beginning of April last year with the arrest of a serious St. Petersburg player in the foreign economic market, Igor Khavronov . Having placed him in their detention center on Shpalernaya, operatives of the smuggling department of the Economic Security Service of the regional FSB Directorate began a dialogue. If the Investigative Committee of the Leningrad Region was interested in the evidence base of the imputed non-payment of customs duties to the businessman and the connection of his associates into a criminal community, then for those in charge of the customs department, the negative impact on the management of the department was important. Finally, in May 2021, for the first time outside the walls of Liteiny, 4, an intention was formulated, and an offer was made to the detained head of the Kingisepp customs, Colonel Sergei Slepukhin .
Sergei Slepukhin and Igor Khavronov
According to the lawyer, his client was advised to testify that he did not so much receive the money himself, but rather transferred it to the then head of the North-Western Customs Alexander Getman, Alexander Bezlyudsky, the first deputy of the North-Western operational customs Nikolai Lagirev, the ex-deputy head of this customs Vladimir Bershadsky , as well as the head of the department for the use of inspection and inspection complexes of the Kingisepp customs Anatoly Fomin and the deputy head of the Kingisepp customs for the law enforcement block Gennady Samchenko. That is, give birth to a “customs officers case”, for which you will receive house arrest and a suspended sentence for a bribe. This comment by the lawyer is conceptual, since in the vast majority of similar prescriptions the name of only the immediate superior is mentioned. Which is logical, otherwise it turns out that the civil servant transfers money not vertically, but directly, bypassing all higher levels of his coordinate system.
“When Slepukhin refused, he was offered a compromise - to testify that the money was transferred to the management by his deputy. And he also called this a lie,” notes his defender Alexander Lyalin .
Alexei Marchukov , who was arrested with him . It was a little easier with them. Firstly, they had already been resting in a detention center for a year, and secondly, in this case, the advice sounded more tempting: either the court will assess the crime imputed to them, and this is up to 20 years, or assistance to the investigation will be assessed for the same suspended sentence.
Alexey Marchukov showed it. Allegedly, a couple of years ago he gave Slepukhin money three times, which totaled 25 thousand dollars. There were three meetings: at the circus on Fontanka in St. Petersburg, at the gas station before entering Kingisepp, and next to the customs training base near Kingisepp. The money, according to Marchukov, was transferred in an intricate manner - it was transferred from the passenger compartment to the open trunk of Slepukhin’s car. They say that Marchukov used the wording during interrogation “for everything to be fine”, “for a good mood”. This just attracts the fashionable accusatory formulation - “for general patronage.”
It would not be amiss to remember that Marchukov also had personal motivation. Few people know, but he was also a colonel in the customs service, and only then moved from the civil service to Igor Khavronov’s ULS Global holding. In 2012-2013, when Slepukhin was the head of the Vologda customs, and Marchukov worked in the organizational and inspection service of North-West Technical University, the latter initiated the process of reorganizing the Vologda customs into a customs post. Slepukhin wrote complaints and contacted the leadership of the Federal Customs Service. As a result of the liquidation, 80% of the employees were fired. After this, Slepukhin and Marchukov, to put it mildly, did not communicate. As for Igor Khavronov, he agreed more carefully, confirming that he recalled the order to improve relations with Kingisepp customs, and since there were no further problems, it means that the order was fulfilled.
Despite the glitch in the program caused by Slepukhin's refusal, the FSB's ambitions led to a series of powerful news stories in the media. Their chronology:
- when on March 2, the head of the North-Western Customs Service, Alexander Getman , in Moscow listened to the head of the Federal Customs Service, Vladimir Bulavin , summing up the results of the year, the same FSB officers entered the Kingisepp customs building with a search and took with them its head, Sergei Slepukhin ;
- On March 6, the FSB conducted a search in the office of the deputy head of the North-West Customs Administration, Major General Alexander Bezlyudsky . In the general's country house too. They even caught up with his wife near Moscow, thinking that the lady was taking away money. No banknotes were found. Bezlyudsky was interrogated as a witness;
- Also on March 6, ex-employee of the North-Western operational customs Zakhara Sychev was detained for two days. He was accused of intermediary in bribery. The investigation believes that Sychev transferred money to certain individuals from among the leaders of the North-West Customs Administration (NWCU) for the unhindered passage of the border by trucks with smuggled goods. Apparently, not everything is ironclad here either - the court imposed house arrest on Sychev;
- On March 20 , Slepukhin was fired for his length of service. And on May 25, he was isolated for two months. The case was initiated for a bribe on an especially large scale;
- Despite all the components of the blitzkrieg, the head of the Federal Customs Service Vladimir Bulavin reacted in the spirit of the Russian Foreign Ministry - in a mirror way. In April, he extended the contract of Alexander Getman . Bulavin also sent a proposal to assign Hetman the next rank - Colonel General of the Customs Service, and the question of the resignation of General Bezlyudsky to the Federal Customs Service was dropped;
- in September, the presidential administration issued a negative conclusion on awarding Hetman the next title. People in the capital doubted the cleanliness of the apartments he purchased. At the end of September, Getman was fired with the wording “due to loss of confidence.” That is, he was finished off not in a procedural way, but in an administrative-procedural manner;
- finally, in November, 54-year-old Lieutenant General Alexander Povod, who previously headed Sheremetyevo customs, was appointed the new head of the North-West Customs Administration;
Alexander Povod
- in December, Alexander Bezlyudsky was transferred by the head of the Federal Customs Service Bulavin to the position of head of operational customs of the Central Customs Administration . Read, the opinion of the St. Petersburg FSB was not heard in Moscow.
Important: there is a fundamental difference between state security and security forces. Usually, when the FSB implements key figures, an understanding has already been formed within its depths of who will take their place. And this, as a rule, is a government official loyal to them. As a result of the special operation, a candidate outside the regional FSB Directorate was approved to replace Hetman. Bezlyudsky spent his nerves, but retained his status. The rest of the planned “Slepukhin list” was not affected by history.
The previous one is strategy. The tactics are even murkier.
— No funds were seized. Some transfer of money is based only on Marchukov’s testimony. There are no other witnesses or witnesses. There are also no documentary facts - audio and video recordings confirming this circumstance. The question arises why Slepukhin is sitting. Probably because they still hope to see slander from officials from him,” lawyer Alexander Lyalin is convinced.
Returning to Khavronov and Marchukov, we note that if they had an agreement with the State Security Service on a suspended sentence, then the result was unlikely to please both. Khavronov received 7.5 years in prison, and Marchukov - 6.5 real years.
The FSB smuggling department, represented by the actual leaders, Lieutenant Colonels Nikolai Sirotin and Dmitry Fedotov, is trying to withstand the blow. Khavronov has been provided with a place in the interregional prison hospital in St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, according to 47news, the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service made a decision to transfer him to the Arkhangelsk region. This seems inevitable by the end of January.
In the meantime, since December 27, in New Crosses, the ex-head of Kingisepp customs, Sergei Slepukhin, has refused to eat. There are two requirements: a meeting with the family and an objective investigation. As for the first, it is predictably rejected - the wife and daughter, although not interrogated for a year, are witnesses. Yes, and Slepukhin understands this. On the second question it is even clearer - the prosecutor's office has been notified. The theme of the future was formulated by Slepukhin’s lawyer: “With such an evidence base as my client’s, it is impossible even to bring him to administrative responsibility.”
Whatever this game is, it's over. Slepukhin and the investigator remained on the field, each with their own problems. It is unclear who will be unluckier in the future. It’s certainly no secret that the worst nightmare for Russian investigators is the so-called rehabilitant, that is, illegally recruited. Their indicators are so crooked.
By the way, the investigator who started the Slepukhin case went on parental leave. The second one quit altogether.
Evgeniy Vyshenkov, 47 news
Smugglers' Friend
Despite the fact that the case of General Kizlyk is only gaining momentum, it is already clear that there will be many episodes in it. One of them may be connected with the history of the deputy heads of special customs procedures departments No. 3 and No. 4 of the Domodedovo Airport customs post, Konstantin Bagraev and Oleg Shevchenko. They, along with eight other defendants, were detained last summer.
According to investigators, from November 2021 to March 2019, members of the criminal group received from one to three thousand dollars from airport passengers for transporting undeclared goods and cash. Kommersant's source suggests that the leadership of customs officials received kickbacks from bribes - and General Kizlyk could be involved in this.
According to other sources, a high-ranking customs officer helped the wife of the Russian Ambassador to Kenya Dmitry Maksimychev, who in June 2021 tried to smuggle $42,000 through the green corridor, but was detained. A couple of days later, General Kizlyk was asked to minimize the consequences for the ambassador's wife.
Alexander Kizlyk
Photo: Alexander Miridonov / Kommersant
According to the investigation, the general, wanting to win over Maksimychev and gain a useful acquaintance with the diplomat, gave verbal instructions to the deputy head of the Domodedovo customs Cherkashin to issue a resolution refusing to initiate a criminal case against the ambassador’s wife. The corresponding decision was made by the investigator for particularly important cases, Andrei Shurygin. Currently, he and Cherkashin are defendants in the same case with Alexander Kizlyk. And in October 2021, a criminal case for cash smuggling was opened against Ambassador Maksimychev’s wife.
Another episode from the criminal case of high-ranking customs officials dates back to July 2018. Then a Muscovite named Stepanov, flying to Montenegro, was detained at Vnukovo airport with undeclared 324 thousand euros. According to investigators, the Deputy Moscow Prosecutor for Supervision of the Execution of Laws on Air and Water Transport stood up for Stepanov. He allegedly asked Kizlyk’s deputy, Alexei Serebro, to impose a fine on Stepanov in the form of a fine below the lowest limit in an administrative case of non-declaration of currency.
Alexey Serebro
Photo: Alexander Miridonov / Kommersant
Since the prosecutor oversees the activities of customs officers, Kizlyk and Serebro complied with his request - Stepanov was fined 5.8 million rubles and the currency was returned. He could be sentenced to a fine of up to 15 times the amount, that is, more than 300 million rubles, or sent to a colony for four years.
To collect all this data, investigators did a lot of work, using technical means: the materials of the criminal case against customs officers contain wiretapping data. In addition, according to Lenta.ru, General Kizlyk and his subordinates were under covert surveillance in their offices.
Shkurat’s internal security demanded 50-100 thousand dollars a month from each customs office
The acting adviser announced this on his Facebook page. Chairman of the State Fiscal Service Alexander Porkhun.
According to him, in recent weeks, customs officials have received numerous reports about attempts by the management of the WB SFS to collect monthly payments from customs heads for non-interference in their work. The tribute amounts were calculated by the number of buses and trucks that passed through customs. The State Fiscal Service will soon provide law enforcement agencies with information about the actions of the internal security leadership of the State Fiscal Service.
“Such “offers” were received by the heads of Transcarpathian, Chernivtsi and Lvov customs. At the same time, Transcarpathian and Lviv customs had to hand over 100 thousand dollars a month, and Chernivtsi – 50 thousand,” wrote Alexander Porkhun.
He noted that customs officials refused to work under the “roof” of internal security and reported this to the central office of the State Fiscal Service. In return, the WB headquarters began to persecute customs officers who did not agree to the “offer” of Shkurat’s unit.
“In response, the WB decided to blackmail customs officers who refused to work “under the roof.” For example, a thematic inspection of the WB of the State Fiscal Service was carried out at the Transcarpathian customs. Completely to no avail. After this, listening equipment was found in the office of one of the leaders of the local State Fiscal Service. All the facts indicate that it was illegally installed by WB employees,” said Porkhun.
He added that the attempt to collect tribute from customs is just one of the episodes of the activities of the leadership of the WB SFS, which has been headed by Igor Shkurat since June 2017. Thus, the department deliberately did not investigate the smuggling scheme of postal operators, which could be behind Shkurat’s “good friends” in the Security Service of Ukraine.
“There are many such cases. The leadership of the State Fiscal Service is trying to collect them and transfer them to law enforcement agencies. That’s why we observe the behavior of the head of the World Bank in the style of a “cornered rat.” As an option for his own salvation, he came up with the absurd idea of separating the World Bank from the State Fiscal Service and subordinating management to the Ministry of Finance. To create, in fact, another, “own” law enforcement agency,” Porkhun said.
As reported, in December 2021, the government reformed the State Fiscal Service, creating the State Customs Service (SCS) and the State Tax Service (STS). At the end of May 2021, the Ministry of Finance approved a new structure of the head office of the State Tax Service, according to which internal security issues will be dealt with by the anti-corruption and human resources departments. The State Fiscal Service of the World Bank itself will be liquidated.
