We continue to talk about the income of people’s choices. Next in line is a deputy of the State Duma from the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexey Vellerwhose life credo seems to have come straight from the Fast and the Furious film franchise – family is above all.
Head of the family
Before starting to build a political career, Alexey Veller was engaged in the construction business in his native Murmansk. However, the surname obliged – the father of AlexeiBoris Naumovich Weller, famous Murmansk builder. Under his leadership, the building of the regional scientific library, the Victoria bakery, the Flowers of the Arctic, several buildings of the Technical University, and the Murmansk Thermal Power Plant were erected.
But then there was a change of eras and the son replaced his father as the chief builder of Murmansk.
And while still a deputy of the local bottling, Alexei Veller managed to light up in a number of scandals. So, the media accused Weller of allegedly registering his family driver for the position of a specialist of the second category in the apparatus of the city Council of Deputies in 2009, so as not to spend money on its maintenance, and also transferred a whole team of trusted persons from his construction company there.
In addition, local journalists suspected him of having rented his own Audi A6 sedan to the Council of Deputies, while driving it himself – for “business needs.” Thus, Deputy Weller allegedly could earn money by car.
Brother
Having become the head of Murmansk at the end of 2010, Alexey Veller, by law, handed over the reins of business to his family – his son Mikhail and older brother Sergey, who was assigned a leading role in the business.
In 2014, ACM-Invest received a state contract from the Office of the Judicial Department in the Murmansk region worth more than 25 million rubles to repair the building of the Severomorsky District Court.
And since that time, the Committee for Property Relations of Murmansk has become the main customer of ASM. Within five years, the company won in 87 tenders, earning more than 250 million rubles. According to SPARK-Interfax, the committee’s share in the portfolio of state orders of the Wellers company was 100%, of which 98% fell on the committee itself, and another 2% – on JSC Sever controlled by the committee.
However, with the onset of the twenties, the Wellers cooled somewhat towards their native Murmansk and, accordingly, the lobbying of the family business also subsided. In February 2021, local media even reported that Alexei Veller’s older brother, Sergey, was leaving the Murmansk City Council, resigning his parliamentary powers and leaving Russia for the Czech Republic, where he has a “small” house.
Boris WellerAlexey Veller, meanwhile, was getting ready for re-election to the State Duma. The move from the Murmansk region to the Krasnoyarsk Territory showed a break with the small Motherland. Weller was not worried about the unfamiliar territory as he had a controlled area in the north of the region, which is held by the Norilsk Nickel corporation.
And, most importantly, the money was – and that’s why.
Wife
With the arrival of Alexei Borisovich to the federal parliament, the role of the “earner” in the Weller family changed. At least, according to income statements. When Weller was in charge of Murmansk in 2015, his wife earned only 1.23 rublesin the next 238 000 rubles.
In the following years, her income was no longer as high, but it still exceeded her husband's income. In 2020, Marina Weller earned 15 million rubles. Additionally, she purchased an apartment of 320 square meters and two small non-residential premises, and in 2019, she acquired another non-residential premises of 1,620 square meters.
At the same time, it is hard to understand the sources of Mrs. Weller's impressive income from open data. According to SPARK-Interfax, at the end of 2017 Marina Nikolaevna Weller acquired 40% of the Moscow company Vizorium, which organizes theatrical performances. In 2018, the company did well, generating revenue of 32 million rubles, including from a state contract, but in 2020 it dropped to seven million. Another company of Marina Weller, Murmansk LLC “Tigra”, did not bring in revenue.
Currently, the situation has not changed. According to the income statement for 2021, Alexey Veller earned almost six million rubles, and his wife – twenty. Thus, under the wing of his wife, who discovered her talent in entrepreneurship and real estate transactions, Deputy Weller could, with a clear conscience, delve into lawmaking.
Son
On December 22, 2021, Alexei Veller, who was successfully re-elected to the State Duma from the Krasnoyarsk Territory, boasted on his VKontakte page that a law was adopted with his involvement in the State Duma, aimed at “tightening the punishment of incorrigible reckless drivers.”
Less than a month later, law enforcement agencies in Murmansk detained the son of deputy Alexei Veller, who was drunk driving a car – Michael. Weller Sr. initially denied this information, but later confirmed the detention.
As a result, the deputy’s son was found guilty under the administrative article on drunk driving. Weller Jr. suspended for a year and 11 months. He must also pay a fine. in the amount of 30 thousand rubles.
Mikhail VellerMikhail Veller is the formal owner of the ACM-Invest construction company, which completed contracts for the administration of Murmansk for 108 million rubles from 2018 to 2020.
Instead of slowly learning the basics of the construction business, Weller Jr. prefers to drive fast, as evidenced by dozens of unpaid fines. The Federal Bailiffs Service started a lot of enforcement proceedings against him. The son of a State Duma deputy was caught both driving cars belonging to the Weller family and on his own Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Total score
In order to finally fix the importance and value of the family for Alexei Veller, another scandal involving the deputy will come to the rescue.
In October last year, a scan of an extract from a bank in Liechtenstein (LGT Bank) appeared on the Web, according to which the deputy, his son Mikhail and brother Sergey have a foreign currency account in the amount of about four million euros.
The Prosecutor General’s Office, the CEC and Rosfinmonitoring took up the verification of this fact. The danger lay in the fact that if the presence of money in the bank and their belonging to Weller were proved, the latter would automatically lose his parliamentary mandate, since current legislation prohibits civil servants and parliamentarians from owning foreign accounts.
State Duma deputy Aleksey Veller reacted instantly and soon published in social networks statements from Liechtenstein’s LGT-Bank about closing an account back in 2013. As the politician explained, he attracted a lawyer company from the specified principality to cooperate in order to quickly obtain official information.
After this statement, the regulatory authorities lost interest in checking and the sky over the Weller family cleared up – until the next scandal.
