Shortly after Mikhail Mishustin became prime minister, it was revealed that part of the land under the luxurious estate was given to the family of an official on Rublyovka by the mysterious businessman Alexander Udodov.
Open Media found this information in Rosreestr in the middle of January.
What connects Mishustin and Udodov and why does the businessman consider himself indebted to the current prime minister? Open Media had access to documents that may answer this question. These are the materials of the criminal case on the illegal VAT refund, a multibillion-dollar scam that was initiated shortly after Mishustin became the head of the Federal Tax Service.
“Mask show” in the tax service
Mikhail Mishustin became head of the Federal Tax Service on April 6, 2010. Exactly one year later, on April 6, 2011, a special operation of the FSB resounded across Moscow. Operatives raided the building of the Moscow department of the tax service on Bolshaya Tulskaya, the residence of the deputy head of the department, Olga Chernichuk, and several tax inspectorates.
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As Kommersant and RBC reported at that time, law enforcement officers were investigating an attempt to steal a huge sum – 2 billion rubles – through VAT refunds. The organizer of the scheme, as stated by sources in both publications, was a certain Alexander Udodov, noting that he is well acquainted with Mishustin (Kommersant specified that they play together in the Sportima hockey club). Searches were also conducted at Udodov’s house.
However, afterwards, Mishustin's acquaintance almost disappeared from this story. In May 2014, Alexander Sabadash, a prominent St. Petersburg businessman and former senator from the Nenets District, was imprisoned. He is considered the main organizer of the scheme. A year later, the Gagarinsky Court of Moscow found the businessman and four accomplices guilty of attempting VAT fraud, sentencing Sabadash to six years in prison, and the others to two to six years.
The text of the appeal in this case is in the public domain. Udodov is mentioned once – as a witness talking about his acquaintance with Sabadash.
But the investigators suspected that Udodov played a significant role in this case. A source familiar with the course of the investigation provided OM with the indictment – a document of hundreds of pages, signed by the senior investigator for especially important cases under the chairman of the ICR Denis Nikandrov (later Nikandrov himself was arrested in another case), which was submitted to the court.
The document describes in detail exactly how Sabadash and his accomplices attempted to steal the money: there are interviews of witnesses, wiretapping materials, a description of what was seized during the searches. The surname Udodov appears 106 times in the document, according to Open Media. Investigators questioned Udodov twice – on April 18 and December 12, 2013, both times as a witness. The attorney of one of the convicts also confirmed to Open Media that this surname was frequently found in the case materials.
Alexander Udodov, friend of the Mishustin family. Photo: profile picture on Telegram
The role of Udodov in the fraud as determined by investigators
According to the charges, it seems that the main version of events before the trial was this: In the autumn of 2010, businessman Alexander Sabadash met with his friend Alexander Udodov. Sabadash, who started trading in vodka in the 1990s, controlled Vyborgskaya Cellulose OJSC, one of the largest pulp and paper mills in the country.
The construction of a pellet plant on the enterprise's premises was nearing completion. In reality, it was built by Vyborg Pulp itself, but according to the documents, it appeared as if the work was carried out by a company called Es-Kontraktstroy and its subcontractors (actually, one-day firms). The Es-Kontraktstroy company intended to claim around 2 billion rubles of VAT for reimbursement from the budget. None of the construction participants planned to pay tax; it was purely a 'scheme'.
Udodov, whom Sabadash met, was known as a person who had significant influence in the field of taxation, as described by the Kommersant newspaper. Additionally, six months prior to the described events, a close friend of Udodov, Mikhail Mishustin, became the head of the Federal Tax Service.
According to the case file, Udodov introduced Sabadash to Olga Chernichuk. This woman had worked for many years in the tax authorities, and when Mishustin took office, she was promoted to deputy head of the Federal Tax Service in Moscow. Chernichuk promised to assist her new acquaintances.
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Initially, the Es-Kontraktstroy company was removed from the tax records in Arkhangelsk and attached to the capital’s IFTS No. 28. This was a well-known inspection: it was mentioned in both the Magnitsky case and in the Novaya Gazeta investigation on illegal VAT refunds.
In November 2010, Es-Kontraktstroy submitted a tax return claiming 1.932 billion rubles to be reimbursed from the budget. A spot check was initiated. The scheme participants required forged documents – this task, according to the wiretapping materials available to Open Media, was undertaken by Udodov.
Consequently, the case includes a conversation that occurred on the morning of February 3, 2011 between Roman Temkin (who actually controlled Es-Kontraktstroy and was a subordinate of Sabadash) and an individual identified by investigators as Udodov.
A portion of the indictment in the Sabadash case. Transcript of Udodov’s conversations with Temkin, the participant in the case. Photo: Open Media Later in the evening of the same day, Udodov, Temkin, and Chernichuk meet at the home of the deputy head of the Federal Tax Service at Sokolnicheskaya Slobidka, 3. Once again, they discuss a desk audit.
Investigators calculated that Udodov and Sabadash made over 200 phone calls, and Udodov and Temkin had 84 calls between December and the end of March.
During a call, Temkin told Sabadash about a tense conversation with their friend, likely Udodov, and described them as tense and pots, likely referring to employees of the tax inspectorate.
Sabadash expressed dissatisfaction with Udodov, comparing him to a hockey player who only cares about money during a conversation with Temkin.
Olga Chernichuk, a former deputy head of the Moscow Federal Tax Service, discussed a VAT embezzlement scheme with Udodov and Temkin in Sokolniki on February 3, 2011.
Released from liability
Sabadash and his group failed to obtain a VAT refund due to the FSB's attention to IFTS No. 28 and the discovery of tax schemes through inspections and media requests.
Starting in December, Sabadash and others involved in the scheme, including Udodov, became subjects of wiretapping by the FSB, leading to their arrests five months later in early April 2011.
Roman Temkin mentioned Olga Chernichuk and Alexander Udodov in his testimony on April 6 before being detained, and the following day, special forces conducted searches in the Moscow Tax Administration, Chernichuk's office, and Udodov's registered apartment.
Udodov was listed as a witness and was not arrested. The Gagarinsky Court of Moscow issued a verdict in March 2015, convicting four people associated with Vyborg Cellulose in addition to Sabadash.
A source familiar with the investigation described the case as egregious and accused Udodov of taking advantage of the tax officers, leaving others who had not managed to steal any money from the budget.
Alexander Udodov resides in a nondescript high-rise building on the outskirts of Moscow and was involved in the tax case that led to searches.
How Udodov is associated with Mishustin and his family
Alexander Udodov has a personal website, but it's quite challenging to recreate his biography. The website states that in 2001, he graduated from Kyiv University of Law at the age of just over 30, and from 2010 to 2014, he worked at the gas company Itera Group. There's a gap between 2001 and 2010.
Some media reports suggest that during this time, Udodov served as vice president of the Peresvet-Invest construction company. In the mid-2000s, he constructed and became the owner of the U Rechnoy shopping center in the northern part of Moscow, which Udodov himself mentioned in an interview with Kompaniya magazine. In 2011, Udodov purchased the glamorous Gimeney shopping center on Bolshaya Yakimanka from Peresvet-Invest.
The first connection with Mikhail Mishustin, revealed by Open Media, occurred in 2007. Udodov became a business partner of Boris Fedorov, the former Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government and the Minister for Taxes and Duties, who initially mentored Mishustin when he started his civil service career in 1998. Udodov, through the Panamanian company Avotower International Ltd, and Fedorov, through UFG Private Equity Fund I, bought a small metropolitan bank called “Unifin”. When Fedorov passed away in 2008, the fund transferred to the Fedorov family.
It was during his brief break from civil service in 2008-2010 at UFG Asset Management that Mikhail Mishustin also worked. It appears that during those years, Udodov acted as a business partner of Mishustin’s employer.
At the end of 2007, Udodov collaborated on non-profit projects with Natalia Stenina, the sister of the future prime minister. They established the Promis charitable foundation and the Sportima hockey club, and later participated in the restoration of a temple in the village of Ubory, near Rublevskoye Highway. Interestingly, both Udodov and Mishustin himself are part of Sportima, as reported by the media.
Mishustin and Udodov are both members of the amateur hockey club Sportima. Photo: navalny.com
How Udodov presented the Mishustin family
In early 2009, Udodov presented Stenina with an extravagant gift – six land plots covering a total area of 1.3 hectares and two houses on Rublevka, in the Cotton Way cottage village. Open Media reported this in mid-January. Later, Alexei Navalny estimated the value of this gift at 730 million rubles. Navalny added that this land and the houses are part of a luxurious estate where not Stenina, but Mishustin himself resides.
In a different real estate incident, in October 2010, when Udodov was actively assisting Sabadash during the VAT theft scandal, Kopre Ltd (British Virgin Islands) acquired two luxury apartments in Khamovniki. Kopre Ltd was associated with Udodov and at the same time owned the Russian LLC GDC Energy Group (a data center in Moscow) with Andrey Astakhov, a hired manager within Udodov's structures.
Later, the apartments were transferred to other companies owned by Udodov and eventually went to the restaurateur Arkady Novikov. After holding them for several years, he sold the property to Alexander and Alexei, Mishustin’s sons. Navalny highlights in his investigation that this occurred once both children reached adulthood, and it was no longer necessary to declare the apartments in Mishustin Sr.'s declaration.
As an acquaintance of Udodov told Open Media, he likes to emphasize his warm and close relationship with the Mishustin family, especially with Natalia Stenina. Therefore, some acquaintances even thought that Udodov was married to Stenina, that is, he was the son-in-law of the new prime minister, the source of Open Media continues. However, this is not true: Natalia Stenina, judging by her social media account, is married to Sergei Stenin, they have a son, Mikhail.
Open Media was unable to contact Alexander Udodov by phone; he did not respond to a message on Telegram.
