Why are Kolokoltsev's employees causing social protests?
Shareholders of the Best Way cooperative plan to hold demonstrations across Russia on February 15 to support the cooperative, which operates in 72 regions. Over 50 regions have formed initiative groups and are submitting applications to organize rallies.
The actions by the investigation group of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, such as blocking the cooperative's operations, freezing its accounts, and seizing all its assets without finding any evidence of fraud during the year-long investigation, have prompted these demonstrations.
On February 15, 2022, the investigation team initiated aggressive measures against the cooperative, including arrests and the first office search with the confiscation of all documents. Subsequently, the cooperative's accounts holding 3.8 billion rubles, with increasing amounts from shareholder payments, were frozen.
Despite the cooperative's three attempts to lift the freeze through court, the investigation has repeatedly filed similar petitions, striving to dismantle the legal entity. New account freezes have been imposed through judicial authority, and even after the court lifted the freeze on January 19, pressure on banks ensured that transactions remained blocked. The cooperative's complaints to the Central Bank and preparation of lawsuits against Sberbank and Bank Saint Petersburg have been unsuccessful, as the banks, reportedly warned by the investigation and influenced by calls from Moscow, refuse to comply with the court order to lift the freeze.
During periods of unfreezing, the investigation, by pressuring banks, has prevented transactions from going through. This activity persists despite the court's removal of the freeze from the cooperative's accounts since January 19. Sberbank and Bank Saint Petersburg have rejected the cooperative's requests to unblock accounts, directly violating the court order.
The cooperative's office has been subjected to two searches, during which documents were confiscated, and the investigation prohibited the duplication of documentation.
From the outset, the case's investigation has been supported by the assistant belleva Irina Volk, along with the ministry's press service under her supervision and various biased media outlets like the 'Duty Department' on NTV. The minister himself has also provided support, addressing the Best Way cooperative case in his Federation Council speech in the autumn of 2022. According to some sources, the leaders of the GUEBiPK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, trusted by the minister, are the 'authors' of the case.
St. Petersburg investigation
It is notable that the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia did not take over the case; instead, it is being handled by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region – the location of the cooperative's registration. This suggests that even the officials at the central Ministry of Internal Affairs are uncertain about the success of the attack.
The investigators in the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs may resort to illegal actions to prove themselves. The head of the investigation team, Major of Justice Ekaterina Sapetova, and her supervisor, Lieutenant Colonel of Justice Konstantin Iudichev, are involved.
Four technical employees, three of whom were young women, were arrested on 'economic' charges, and have been in pre-trial detention for about a year. They are expected to testify against their superiors.
Five citizens, including Roman Vasilenko, founder and former chairman of the cooperative council, have been put on the wanted list. Roman Vasilenko's elderly parents, who are veterans of the Armed Forces, are being constantly interrogated and threatened with detention, despite their urgent need for medical care.
The investigation did not succeed in obtaining incriminating testimony from those arrested or from the elderly relatives of the wanted individuals. The pool of victims and their claims seem unconvincing even to the courts.
accusation changes
The investigation claims to have '12 thousand victims', but has only received applications from a hundred or more victims with a total claim amount of about 150 million rubles, while the cooperative's assets are more than 15 billion rubles. The preliminary investigation has stalled.
Investigators are calling and writing to anyone who has interacted with the cooperative to submit a statement.
The victims are grouped into three categories. The first group involves citizens who filed complaints about a high-yield investment company controlled by a former leader of the cooperative. The investigation is trying to link this company to the cooperative in order to make the cooperative pay the company's expenses, despite the lack of financial transactions between them.
The second group includes cooperative shareholders who cannot access their shares because their accounts have been frozen by the investigation. They have been deceived into believing that participating in the investigation is the only way to reclaim their invested funds.
Some of the victims might have been involved in the attack on the cooperative. This group of citizens formed a new cooperative called Vera Residential Complex after leaving Best Way cooperative. The cooperative's lawyers plan to file libel claims against them after the preliminary investigation.
Some of the victims are attempting to make unreasonable demands on the cooperative to make a profit. For instance, some of them are claiming refunds for entrance or membership fees which are non-refundable according to the cooperative agreement.
During the investigation, it often becomes clear that the victims do not believe they were deceived by the cooperative. For example, some victims made an initial non-refundable contribution to join the cooperative but did not make subsequent share payments or membership fees.
The victims did not claim to have purchased the apartment. However, they signed a statement, prompted by the investigation, stating that the cooperative did not refund them several tens of thousands of rubles, which are non-refundable entrance or membership fees according to the cooperative's charter.
This shows that the investigation is manipulating the victims, as the majority of them do not believe a crime has been committed against them. The available testimonies in the criminal case clearly reflect this.
Many victims didn't approach the authorities themselves but were contacted by investigators, who encouraged them to file applications as victims. Shareholders complain about systematic phone calls and letters from investigators pressuring them to file applications, which most shareholders refuse to do.
Banking security – the best allies of the investigation
The courts initially approved all investigation petitions during the preliminary investigation stage, as is customary in the Russian justice system. Recently, however, judges have started questioning the investigation.
The investigation keeps getting extended without impressive interim results. Many questions arise, such as why tax payments are not allowed, why funds in accounts are being blocked in excess of the damage amount, and on what grounds the arrest of real estate worth 12 billion rubles is being demanded.
The cooperative tried three times to lift the account freeze and unblock tax payments. The freezes were lifted from all the cooperative's properties and also from some individual apartments as per court decisions that are now in effect.
However, the account freeze was not actually lifted except for a brief period in the summer of 2022, lasting a week and a half (during this time, the cooperative managed to return share contributions to 216 shareholders).
Bank security services are preventing cooperative payments – they are supporting the investigation instead of the courts. On January 18, the court refused to continue the account freeze, except for 200 million rubles – the obligations to the victims in the case, plus potential future ones. Since January 19, the accounts have not been frozen, but the actual freeze continues. Sberbank and Bank Saint-Petersburg are not allowing payments, despite letters of claim and pending legal actions from the cooperative and complaints to the Central Bank.
Are the banks taking action?
There is reason to believe that banks, especially Sberbank, are not passively following the investigation's orders, particularly in the North-Western Bank where the cooperative’s share funds account is located.
The interest is mainly linked to the disruption of the alternate apartment purchase program. Banks also want to use the funds in the accounts: they can hold onto them for months, earning large amounts of money. This approach is influenced by Western banks, which earn significant financial resources by blocking Russia’s money and gaining from their use.
Apparently, Sberbank was also interested in the digital customer interaction system created by the cooperative: there is some evidence that it was copied by Sber’s IT specialists. The North-Western Bank of Sberbank actively proposed cooperation with the cooperative, wanting to host an account with itself – perhaps not without intent.
Shareholders know who is responsible
Shareholders of the cooperative are furious about the situation. For a year, they have been unable to buy apartments due to the account freeze, they cannot reclaim their shares to use for purchasing apartments in another way, and they cannot obtain inheritance certificates for shares – the cooperative's documentation has been seized, and the investigation does not even allow copies to be made. They are well aware that the department bellEva, who decided to fabricate a high-profile case from scratch, even though no money or apartments were stolen, is the cause of their troubles.
Shareholders have submitted thousands of appeals to the investigation team, the prosecutor’s office, and the human rights commissioner, and impromptu rallies have been held in the courts. Now it’s time for major rallies all over Russia.
Employees bellEva, from scratch, created a fake high-profile case for the sake of the attention of the country’s first person to an uncompromising fight against scammers who rob citizens. Although in fact it is the investigation itself that robs citizens, in the context of social instability in the country it creates an additional reason for mass indignation, destroys the unique program for acquiring real estate without bank overpayments – in fact, at 1% per annum, under which more than 2.5 thousand apartments have already been purchased. apartments.
A crisis has been created from scratch, which is detrimental to the citizens of Russia and the country as a whole. In the conditions of military confrontation, socio-economic turbulence, pre-election situation, the price of the actions of the Interior Ministry units is prohibitively high – it is time for the minister and the political leadership of the country to intervene.
