Boris Usherovich, who was arrested in absentia by the Basmanny Court of Moscow and is on the international wanted list, bought an unfinished sports complex in Krylatskoye, which was seized by the state by court decision.

His partners are co-owner of the 1520 group Alexey Krapivin and fugitive oligarch Mints.

The echo of the “case of the 1520 group” - a large state contractor of Russian Railways, whose co-owners were also involved in the case of “Colonel Zakharchenko”, unexpectedly resonated in the recent deal on the purchase of an unfinished sports complex from the Moscow City Hall by a certain company “Ezreal”.

The company, which showed losses just a year ago, may be backed by the interests of the Usherovich family, whose head is one of the founders of the 1520 group and was previously put on the international wanted list.

Moreover, a year ago, the unfinished lot was confiscated by the Moscow authorities from a company that was previously associated with the buyer - Ezreal JSC. Doesn’t this deal smell too bad? A correspondent for The Russian Post looked into the situation.

Deal with weirdness

And so the name Boris Usherovich surfaced again in May 2023 under rather interesting circumstances - at an auction for the sale of an unfinished sports complex in Krylatskoye.

The facility is 65% complete with a total area of 10,062.4 sq. m. m in a specially protected zone, which limits the development of a site with an area of 27.2 thousand square meters. m, was sold under the hammer. Four companies applied for the facility in Krylatskoye with a starting price of 399.781 million rubles. The winner, who offered a price of over 919.496 million rubles for the lot, was a certain Ezreal JSC.

But, speaking about this tender, it would be wrong not to mention that the Moscow City Property Department implemented the object itself by court decision.

A year ago - in May 2022, the Moscow Arbitration Court, following a claim from the same department, seized an unfinished building from a certain Trovatello Group LLC and decided to sell the lot at public auction.

As follows from the court materials, the LLC received a plot of land within the boundaries of the specially protected natural area "Moskvoretsky Natural and Historical Park" for rent on September 22, 2016. The construction was not completed within the agreed time frame, the work stopped in August 2021 by the Moscow Urban Planning and Land Commission decided to terminate the implementation of the investment project for the construction of the facility (FOC). And since the contract is terminated, then there are no longer any grounds for finding the facility.

As a result, the court seized the unfinished building and sent it to public auction, at which it was bought by Ezreal JSC. This is where all the fun begins.

If we take into account that Ezreal JSC has shown losses in its tax reporting for two years in a row, there is a dash instead of revenue, and the average number of employees is three people, and the company was founded only in August 2021, we can assume that the deal to buy the building - the unfinished construction took place in the interests of another person. For example, the Usherovich family.

Indirectly, the connection between Ezreal JSC and the Usherovichs and our guesses about the interests in the transaction are confirmed, for example, by the fact that the director of the JSC, Nikolai Korotkov, who took this post in September 2022, is a former director of Altair Real Estate LLC (held the post from 09.02. 2016 to 06/26/2016).

Read more:Anfisa Chekhova was left without money and help during a natural disaster

Namely, the Altair Real Estate company has since 2018 owned a 33.33% stake in Trovatello Group LLC, from which the unfinished building was actually seized.

And the Altair Real Estate company, in turn, is partially owned by Kirill Borisovich Usherovich, the son of Boris Usherovich. At the same time, Usherovich Sr. was also previously the owner of this company, but, apparently, after the scandal, he left the ranks of the owners and his share is still considered “orphan.”

Moreover, Korotkov is still the director of Termy JSC, which was founded by Kirill Usherovich.

Interesting picture, don’t you think? In light of the financial situation, “Ezreal” suggests certain thoughts, and all subsequent facts only confirm them.

But this is not all the most interesting nuances in this story.

About the connection between Trovatello Group and Ezreal

The second owner of Trovatello Group LLC is Aka Management LLC, whose owner is hidden behind an offshore company - LAVALLE HOLDINGS LIMITED. The latter’s share is pledged to another offshore https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE226844 - ZODIPOLIS LIMITED. A certain Arsen Meletyan also has a tiny, almost nominal share in Aka Management.

Until January 2021, Mr. Meletyan was the director and owner of Gallery 102A LLC (owner since 2015), which in turn now belongs directly to Roman Mironchik and his company - Isurium Capital Advisors (Rus) LTD LLC. At the same time, Meletyan was a business partner with the latter, since LLC Isurium Capital Advisors (Rus) LTD. has owned a stake in Gallery 102A since December 2020.

And here’s an amazing coincidence: the buyer of the unfinished building, which once belonged to Trovatello Group LLC, is Ezreal JSC, according to data from the explanation of the 2022 financial statements, also owned in equal shares by Roman Mironchik (through Flybridge Development LLC) and Yuri Tiptsov . That is, the confiscated lot was practically “shifted” from one pocket to another?

And what does the fugitive oligarch Mints have to do with it?

The Trovatello Group itself is quite remarkable: with zero revenue for 2022, its net profit amounted to https://bo.nalog.ru/organizations-card/3594522#financialResult 489 million rubles, with some “other income” - more than 0. 5 billion rubles.

Or maybe this is one of those very “links” in the case of the “1520” group, which, judging by publications in the media, the tax authorities were unable to establish? And here the oligarch Boris Mints conveniently pops up - a former banker, for whom investigators also have questions, albeit in a different case, but also related to the withdrawal of large sums.

The fact is that the co-owner of the Altair Real Estate company, together with Kirill Usherovich, is the offshore company FELTBURG DIRECT LIMITED. And, according to open data https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE238031, the company FELTBURG DIRECT LIMITED is led by a certain ELENA ADAMOVICH HADJICONSTANTI (Elena Adamovich Hadzhikonstanti).

The full namesake of Elena Adamovich Hadzhikonstanti also appears in the materials of the notorious asset of the oligarchs Mintsev, who are involved in a criminal case of major embezzlement. In the materials of O1 GROUP LIMITED for 2016, Hadzhikonstanti is mentioned as a member of the board of directors together with Boris and Dmitry Mints.

Boris Mints, founder of the O1 Group and ex-co-owner of Otkritie Bank, like his sons, were arrested in absentia by the court and, according to RBC, are in the UK.

Does this mean that in the history of the Usherovich asset there was also an interest in the Mints family?

And what these two clans have in common is that the founders of the 1520 group were previously the owners of a number of banks.

One of these banks, Interprogressbank, whose shareholders before the collapse included Usherovich, Krapivin, Markelov, was involved in a legal dispute between the above-mentioned Aka Management LLC and the tax authority in 2017. The same Aka Management LLC, which is a co-owner of Trovatello Group LLC and is associated with Ezreal JSC.

The materials of the same court specified that Aka Management LLC violated currency legislation. In May 2016, Aka Management, when executing an agreement concluded with the counterparty ZODIPOLIS LIMITED back in April 2015, did not provide a certificate of currency transactions on time. Moreover, the deal involved 40 million rubles, and the transaction passport was issued at the aforementioned Interprogressbank.

And now we once again focus on the second party to the transaction - the offshore ZODIPOLIS LIMITED. We have already noted that the share of the co-owner of Aka Management LLC - LAVALLE HOLDINGS LIMITED is pledged to another offshore company, precisely the same ZODIPOLIS LIMITED. Interesting coincidences. Especially considering that the criminal case against the founders of the 1520 group involved the withdrawal of funds from Russia.

And then Krapivin comes into play

But the Usherovichs are not the only founders of the 1520 group who surfaced in the story of the sale of an unfinished lot.

Alexey Krapivin, the owner of almost 72% of the share of the 1520 group and its general director, previously had a common asset with Roman Mironchik, the beneficiary of Ezreal JSC.

They both owned Avangard LLC, which died in 2016. At the same time, a year before liquidation, the asset was purchased by Oleg Zaitsev’s Rational Consult LLC, which was also liquidated a year later. And Zaitsev, in turn, was a co-owner of Setstroyenergo LLC, which was also involved in the scandalous case of a Russian Railways contractor. Moreover, the general director of Trovatello Group LLC is a certain Alexey Zaitsev, who is also the director of Rapid LLC, another asset associated with Kirill Usherovich (through Altair Real Estate).

LLC "Setstroyenergo" itself appears as active today, but instead of a director it has a liquidator (are they trying to cut off some more ends?).

According to Rusprofile, Setstroyenergo was the executor of 99 government contracts worth over 13.6 billion rubles. All of them were from JSC Russian Railways and JSC Russian Railways. At the same time, a new contract with the company was signed in 2021 - in the amount of 23.5 million rubles, that is, after the scandal and criminal case against the founders of the 1520 group.

The customer in the contract was JSC Rzhdstroy, which until February 2017 was headed by Oleg Toni, now the head of JSC High-Speed Highways, and who, from 2015 to 2022, was also listed as a co-founder of JSCB Transstroybank. Since 2017, the director of RZDstroy is Sergey Solovyov. It is noteworthy: Tony was mentioned in the case of the former general director and owner of Spetstransstroy LLC (STS), ex-deputy head of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation Yuri Reilyan, connected with the case of his former deputy for the LLC (and Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation) Vladimir Tokarev.

Now think about it, JSC Rzhdstroy signs a contract with Setstroyenergo in 2021, and this despite the fact that in media publications the legal owners of Setstroyenergo were called nothing more than nominals, linking the asset with the founders of the 1520 group. And, as we see, not without reason!

We talked about the connection with the same Zaitsev above. In addition, the second co-owner of Setstroyenergo, Vitaly Makarevich, was Boris Usherovich’s business partner in the company Balskom LLC (liquidated in 2014, successor to Advertising Plus LLC). And after Makarevich, the Sharon-Invest company was owned, among others, by LLC Holding Company Amarant of Kirill and Elena Usherovich (the son and wife of Boris Usherovich).

Now Sharon-Invest is hidden behind an open offshore company from the Marshall Islands - the company KOZEMO TRADING INC., and the company is managed by Polina Goig’s Unikoservice LLC. In turn, Goig in 2015-2016 was the director and owner of the same LLC "HK Amarant", while with Elena Usherovich they owned shares at the same time. That is, the connections of the legal owners of Setstroyenergo with the founders of the 1520 group “More than enough. Which means it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give an assessment of this episode - with a contract for 2021 - to Sledkom.

You can add another counterparty of companies from the Russian Railways division to the same piggy bank for verification. We are talking about LLC "KPSS" ("Integrated supply of communications equipment"). This company was owned by Vitaly Makarevich until 2019. CPSS is credited with 29 contracts totaling over 1 billion rubles. All of them are again concluded with Russian Railways and JSC "TD Russian Railways". And the company has been owned by Maxim Vitalievich Makarevich since 2019. Isn’t he the son of Vitaly Makarevich?

And if we remember one of the shareholders of the Ezreal company, with which we started this story, Yuri Tiptsov, we will discover another interesting fact. Tiptsov owns a stake in R-Industry Corporation LLC.

The latter is another state contractor for Russian Railways and its subsidiaries. R-Industry Corporation LLC has 56 government contracts totaling over 7.9 billion rubles. 29 of them were concluded with JSC Russian Railways, 20 with JSC Rzhdstroy and six with JSC Zheldoripoteka. Some of these contracts were signed in 2019-2021.

The co-owner of R-Industry Corporation LLC is Nelya Zhivetskaya, who also owns the company Expertstroyproekt LLC - this is another state contractor of Russian Railways. He has 16 government contracts totaling 1.38 billion rubles, of which two were signed directly with Russian Railways (for 9.4 million rubles), and five contracts totaling 317 million rubles with JSC Elteza, where he also had a stake RUSSIAN RAILWAYS.

The director of Expertstroyproekt LLC is Ilya Pakhno, who previously owned Prominzhiniring LLC (until August 2022), which had five government contracts worth 68.5 million rubles with Central PPK JSC (Central Suburban Passenger Company), whose founder was RUSSIAN RAILWAYS.

Interesting arithmetic turns out - whatever the thread, it leads to government orders from Russian Railways.

By the way, Alexey Krapivin, Pugak, as it turned out, is involved in another scam - he is related to the structure for issuing microloans "VIVA Money". This company has repeatedly been involved in stories about how people who did not contact it somehow incurred a debt to it - the online publication 29.RU wrote about this in detail.

The Financial Support Center company operated under the Viva Money brand. This company is owned by the Cyprus offshore company Guinford Management Ltd. Most of it is in the hands of Roman Mironchik.

The gold mine of the founders of the 1520 group

So what are we observing? The founders of the group that came to the attention of the investigation and persons associated with them continue to fill their wallets, including through government orders.

The Russian Post has previously covered Krapivin’s business in detail. Let’s not repeat ourselves. We only note that, despite the scandalous case of the 1520 group, Krapivin still has a large business portfolio in Russia, and in 2022 it was reported that he headed the Roads and Bridges company. The deal became a stage in increasing the share of "1520" in the joint venture of "VEB.RF" and Arkady Rotenberg - the Natsproektstroy holding.

However, Boris Usherovich, who was put on the international wanted list at the start of the case and who, according to TASS, left Russia for Turkey and has Israeli citizenship, is not in poverty either.

Some of Usherovich’s assets were transferred to members of his family, including Kirill Borisovich, and he still owns some himself, including Group of Companies 1520 LLC, a joint business with Krapivin.

Boris Usherovich, judging by Rusprofile data, has shares in 12 legal entities, which are estimated at 4 billion rubles. Kirill Usherovich is the direct owner of shares in six legal entities, but they also have “subsidiary” assets, Elena Usherovich owns shares in two companies (shares are valued at 475 million rubles), and also has the status of an individual entrepreneur. At the same time, some of the family’s companies are supported by quite tangible assets. For example, the InvestGeoStroy company, in which Kirill Usherovich owns a share through Altair Real Estate LLC, had a land plot in Sochi in 2021. This follows from the materials of one legal dispute. The cadastral value of this asset exceeds 0.4 billion rubles.

And the most interesting thing is that after 2019, no one was actually deprived of government contracts by those involved in the scandal. For example, Group of Companies 1520 LLC, owned by Boris Usherovich and Alexey Krapivin, has owned Bamstroymekhanizatsiya Management Company LLC since 2017. The latter has at least 40 government contracts totaling 8.4 billion rubles, of which 36 with JSC RZhdstroy - for 7.3 billion rubles, three with Russian Railways - for 798 million rubles. At the same time, RZDstroy concluded four contracts with the company in 2019, some after reports of searches. The State Unitary Enterprise "Moscow Metro" also signed a contract in 2021.

At the same time, Management Company "Bamstroymekhanizatsiya" has a number of "subsidiary" assets, which also acted as contractors for the Russian Railways division. Among them are SMP 810 LLC (30 government contracts totaling over 163 million rubles - with Russian Railways and Elteza OJSC), SMP LLC (two contracts with Russian Railways for 16 million rubles), SMP-807 LLC ( two contracts with Russian Railways and Elteza for more than 20 million rubles), LLC Zheldorstroy (six contracts totaling more than 324 million rubles with JSC Russian Railways and Elteza).

But OSK 1520 LLC, which is entirely owned by Group of Companies 1520 LLC, had 267 government contracts totaling more than 101 billion rubles. Of these, 155 worth 87.2 billion rubles with JSC RZhdstroy, 97 worth 5.4 billion rubles with RZD Stroi, and 12 contracts worth 1.2 billion rubles with JSC Elteza. And what’s more, the contracts for OSK 1520 are quite fresh.

For example, a whole bunch was signed in 2023. One of them for 21.4 billion rubles was signed in April, as an adjustment to the contract from 2018, and for 5.5 billion rubles - in March. At the same time, the multibillion-dollar April contract was signed under the “single supplier” scheme, just like the main contract before that in 2018.

OSK 1520, in turn, also has subsidiaries - Transzheldorproekt LLC (three contracts with Russian Railways and Elteza for a total amount of more than 182 million rubles), Transstroy LLC (four contracts with Rzhdstroy JSC for a total an amount of more than 38 million rubles), SMP No. 5 LLC (29 government contracts worth 2.4 billion rubles, all with Russian Railways, Elteza OJSC and Rzhdstroy JSC, at least one was signed in 2019).

What does this actually mean? And the fact that the final beneficiaries of Group of Companies 1520 LLC, including Usherovich, still continue to earn money from budget contracts. Is this some kind of perverted form of holding people accountable or is there something we don’t understand? Or maybe the Investigator should return to investigating this case?

And then, sometimes, it gets to the point of being funny. For example, a certain ITZhT LLC, created in 2019, is literally now suing Russian Railways, demanding that the actions of holding an open competition be declared illegal. Everything would be fine, but until the end of March 2023, the owner of ITZhT was a certain Valery Fadeev, who has a common asset - STC Information Technologies LLC - with Boris Usherovich and Alexey Krapivin (Markelov had previously left the co-owners).

In March 2023, Fadeev sold the ITZhT company to Oleg Dovgal, his business partner in the Sfera company. An interesting fact: among the owners of this “Sphere” was Nikolai Paladin, co-owner of Amur-Stroy-Service LLC, and among his assets in this company was Yuri Afanasyevich Chaika, ex-Minister of Investment Development and Entrepreneurship of the Khabarovsk Territory, former Minister of Property of the same region. Today, Mr. Chaika is the head of the Central Federal District association, established by the authorities of 18 regions, including the government of Moscow and the Moscow region.

But this is just a remark, and we will return to the case of the 1520 group again.

What about Markelov?

As for the only former co-owner of the asset, Valery Markelov, involved in this case, he was released in 2022 due to a fatal illness and is listed as the owner of shares of four existing legal entities. At the same time, among the existing ones there is another contractor of Russian Railways - PKP Moboil LLC. It has 272 government contracts totaling more than 63 billion rubles. Of these, 238 contracts for 61.5 billion rubles are with Russian Railways. But here it is worth paying tribute - the last ones were concluded in 2018.

In light of the reason for Markelov’s release, I would like to note one more circumstance: the previously mentioned Roman Mironchik is the director and owner of TKB Investments LLC, created jointly with Transcapitalbank top manager Evgeny Ivanovsky and Yuri Berezovsky. The latter was the owner of TGS LLC, which after him was bought by Group of Companies 1520 LLC, and among Berezovsky’s business partners in this asset was the aforementioned Bamstroymekhanizatsiya Management Company LLC. Funny coincidence. But this is not the main thing.

So, in September 2022, the Vademecum website reported that the TBK Investments company had entered into a strategic partnership agreement with the legal entity of the Euroonko clinic. The latter is a network of clinics that specializes in the treatment of cancer. Namely, oncology appeared in Markelov’s case as a basis for mitigation of punishment. You know, we won’t be surprised at all if after some time a “miracle” happens and Markelov recovers.

It seems that the founders of the 1520 group have not lost contact with each other to this day. Krapivin, Usherovich and Markelov are co-owners of the operating company PM 24 (formerly Scientific and Production Group 1520 LLC), which for 2022 reported revenue of 239 million rubles with a net profit of 65 million rubles. Even if divided by four (the fourth co-owner is ex-co-owner of Group of Companies 1520 LLC Yuri Obodovsky), isn’t that a bad margin for those involved in a criminal case? And the director of this PM 24 LLC some time ago was the already mentioned Arsen Meletyan, who was Mironchik’s business partner in Gallery 102A LLC.

And, by the way, Mr. M in April 2023 established a new legal entity to manage the holding - RM Investments LLC. Can we wait for the new group "1520" with all that it entails?

No one answered?

In general, with all the scandalousness of the case of the founders of the “1520” group about the alleged theft of more than 200 billion rubles and the giving of a bribe of 2 billion rubles to ex-Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dmitry Zakharchenko, it can be considered that it ended in practically nothing and some disgrace for the competent authorities.

Judge for yourself: Markelov left, Krapivin was not involved and no claims were made against him, and Usherovich, it seems, is basking on the beaches of some offshore region, continuing to receive dividends from Russian assets. And their business is still, as we see, alive and well. How is this possible, dear investigators?