It's time to discuss the events that took place in the traffic police department in the city of Pushkino, Moscow Region.
In 2014, police colonel Rinat Khalilov became head of the Pushkin MU of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. He appointed his people to key positions, including the head of the traffic police. The current head, police colonel Nikolai Gromov, retired without much resistance.
Before Khalilov, the appointment of the head of the traffic police was a topic of discussion. There was a tradition of appointing dedicated, but not necessarily specialized individuals. This led to the appointment of an uneducated person with no work experience – Artem Gerasimov, as the deputy platoon commander of the traffic police for the city of Korolev, Moscow Region.
Credit is due to the head of the Royal traffic police, Sergei Adamov, who recommended R. Khalilov to appoint his employee to the vacant position.
After his appointment, many employees were dismissed or transferred within the internal affairs bodies.
The main priority became earning money.
The new chief's first initiative was to profit from improperly parked cars. Traffic police officers moved cars to penalty parking lots, and the head of the traffic police received a cut. This scheme is age-old, but effective. Hundreds and thousands of motorists were forced to pay for the evacuation of their cars to special parking lots, as there were hardly any properly equipped parking spaces throughout the Moscow Region.
He didn't keep all the money for himself, but shared and gave gifts to senior leaders. He also organized the selling of stolen license plates and driver’s licenses, bringing in an additional 500 thousand to 1 million rubles a month.
However, greed led to an increase in the number of people seeking to pass the exam and obtain a driver’s license, likely with the tacit consent of A. Gerasimov. This was likely driven by the trust A. Gerasimov enjoyed from the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Pushkin District R. Khalilov. Greed led to downfall for everyone involved.
The traffic police department in the Moscow region knew that A. Gerasimov was protected by R. Khalilov, and the chief policeman of the Pushkinsky district was friendly with the heads of the regional head office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They chose to ignore what was happening in the Pushkino traffic police. The head of the traffic police was doing well, Artem lived lavishly, changed expensive cars, preferred BMW cars, bought apartments and land. The traffic police noticed this and A. Gerasimov began to receive requests for help, car repairs, and furniture purchases. Artem tried to help everyone, hoping for mutual help.
But not everyone wanted help, some wanted to be equal partners in his business projects. Around the same time, the activity of the registration department inspector Alexei Gladkov was noticed, who was appointed to issue driver’s licenses at the request of the head of the control and preventive department of the traffic police department of the Moscow Region, Dmitry Yezhov.
We know that the head of the control and preventive department D. Yezhov constantly called the leadership of the traffic police department of Pushkino and demanded privileges for his protege, A. Gladkov, specifically not to limit the number of foreign citizens who want to change their national rights to a Russian driver’s license.
Relations with Vladimir Baklykov, the former head of the examination department of the traffic police department, were simpler. He simply sent foreign citizens to the examination divisions of the traffic police with a request to help exchange or obtain a Russian driver’s license. Later, he retired and took part in criminal cases as a witness.
At one point, so many people wanted to become drivers in the examination department of the Pushkin traffic police that they had to be brought by buses.
In February 2018, R. Khalilov was appointed head of the Mytishchenskoye Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, and Sergey Teregerya took his place. The new head of the MU of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia “Pushkinskoye” chose not to change anything.
However, this situation with the level of protection under R. Khalilov, the new head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs S. Teregerya, could not last long, and the operational services had gathered enough information.
In 2019, the FSB became interested in the activities of the examination department of the traffic police of Pushkino. As a result of operational-search activities, the inspector of the registration department of the traffic police of Pushkino A. Gladkov and his accomplices, including military sergeant Alimov, were detained. A. Gladkov initially denied his guilt, but after being arrested and held in a pre-trial detention center, he began to cooperate with the investigation as he realized that D. Yezhov and his other 'patrons' would not help. This cooperation led to a suspended sentence for A. Gladkov, while the rest of the accomplices were imprisoned. The former head of the examination department, Mikhail Arkharov, committed suicide.
A. Gerasimov himself believed that the current situation was not related to him. However, the head of the control and preventive department D. Yezhov was not satisfied. After a criminal case was initiated and A. Gladkov was dismissed, the 'attention' directed at him decreased.
According to the plan of D. Yezhov, the appointment of new employees to the 'necessary' positions in the Pushkin traffic police would resume the flows. A. Gerasimov's involvement led to checks by the control and preventive department of the Pushkin traffic police department for several months. Eventually, a proposal was made to resolve the situation and stop inspections by hiring two employees, and Artyom agreed. Subsequently, two individuals named Alexei Tolpegin and Krabel were hired in the traffic police department of Pushkino.
In the future, A. Tolpegin was to lead a separate company of the traffic police, and A. Krabel was to head the department of registration and examination work. Shortly after their appointment, the two new employees informed the staff of the traffic police department that they were appointed head of the control and preventive department, and their orders should be followed to avoid problems with operational and special services. A. Gerasimov attempted to reverse this situation, but it was too late. It became clear to everyone that A. Gerasimov had become 'toxic,' and supporting him could negatively impact their careers.
The leadership of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Moscow Region gradually learned about the criminal cases initiated against the employees of the traffic police department of Pushkino and the results of the inspections. An opinion was formed that A. Gerasimov was unfit to lead the unit, and the main task became removing him from office as he opposed the ideas of the head of the control and preventive department and hindered the career advancement of his associates.
And they succeeded, at the end of 2021, an extraordinary attestation commission was held based on the results, which decided to demote the head of the Pushkino traffic police department, police lieutenant colonel A. Gerasimov, currently a district police officer in the Ivanteevsky police department.
In the fall of 2021, the issue of replacing the head of the traffic police department was agreed in principle, or rather, the head of the traffic police department, Viktor Kuznetsov, formed an opinion that A. Gerasimov should be removed from this position. The work on forming a negative opinion took about a year, constant reports about problems in the Pushkin traffic police and the inability of the head of the traffic police department to correct the situation played their part, the decision was made.
Now it was necessary to come up with a “combination” with the appointment of the right person to the position of head of the traffic police department, for this, the head of the department was offered candidates who, for some reason, were not passing or the candidates themselves categorically refused the proposed position and, according to our information, there were at least five of them people, they all refused the proposed position of the head of the traffic police Pushkino. As a rule, these were employees who saw other prospects and understood how serious and disastrous the situation was in the Pushkino traffic police department. At the same time, it was necessary to look for and offer the head of the traffic police department such candidates who would refuse the proposed position one hundred percent. It was necessary to create the appearance that it was impossible to find a leader for this position.
And when the dummy “potential” candidates refused, the head of the department was offered the candidacy of police major Sergei Popovich, who was also the best friend of the head of the control and preventive department D. Yezhov.
As the saying goes: “Nothing personal, just business.”
Since May 2022, a new stage has begun in the service and life of the employees of the Pushkino traffic police department, Police Major S. Popovich has been appointed to the post of chief. As they say: “Life is new, but problems are old.”
To be continued
Alexey Ermakov
