An appeal to Putin, a hunger strike due to non-payment of salaries escalated the conflict around the previously successful Lotas agricultural enterprise from the Krasnoufimsky district.
After a meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture of the Sverdlovsk Region, workers leave the company in large numbers, without having achieved the end of the criminal prosecution of the former head Vladimir Aimetov, who has been trying to save the enterprise from financial trouble since 2012. The manager was accused of selling over a thousand cows to his ex-wife, IP Aimetova V.I. However, it was revealed during proceedings in the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region that the animals were actually transferred to the company by Valentina Aimetova under a lease agreement in 2012. The entrepreneur took her property back after the alleged owner decided to reclaim the successful agricultural enterprise. The sale and purchase agreement turned out to be a forgery, and the new management tried to return costly animals using this fake document. Another attempt at a possible raider seizure was made in the neighboring Achitsky district, where entrepreneur Knyazev falsified the results of a cooperative meeting, during which he allegedly became the new chairman. However, two deceased individuals and one man who was too ill to leave his house managed to sign the protocol of in-person voting. Interest in the relatively small enterprise is linked to its fields’ proximity to the future Ekaterinburg-Kazan HSR.
Employees of Lotas LLC, in the Krasnoufimsky district of the Sverdlovsk region, are leaving the agricultural enterprise in large numbers, which is now under the control of the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin. They were employed by individual entrepreneur V.I. Aimetova, who owned a minority stake (33%) in the legal entity's authorized capital.
Last December, about 200 Lotas employees appealed to Vladimir Putin to address the situation involving the alleged raider seizure of a profitable agricultural enterprise. They also requested the release from criminal prosecution of the former director, Vladimir Aimetov, who has been managing the economy since 2012. At the end of January this year, residents of the villages of Sarsy and Sarsy-Second decided to go on a hunger strike due to the enterprise takeover and unpaid wages.
Vladimir Aimetov
Photo: Alexander Sorin
“Our ministry is monitoring the situation. The enterprise's employees should not suffer, and the sowing campaign should proceed. A meeting was held on Monday with all parties involved in the conflict. We agreed that all people will be employed and there should be no outstanding debts,” stated Artem Bakhterev, Minister of Agro-Industrial Complex and Consumer Market of the Sverdlovsk Region.
The new leader of Lotos LLC, Mikhail Egorov, has said in courts and the media that Vladimir Aimetov used his position to sell the company's property and animals to his ex-wife Valentina Aimetova for very little money. As a result, a criminal case was started for illegal enrichment on a large scale.
Meanwhile, Valentina Aimetova sees the situation differently. The family initially started a potato-growing business in the village of Sarsy-Second. The farm expanded, and they decided to start a new LLC for dairy farming among other activities.
“When Muradov Logman Khalid oglu, who owns 52% of Lotas, found out about our plan to open a new company, he suggested that we work with Lotas. We agreed. They were located in the village of Golenishchevo, and his brother stayed to manage a small herd of sheep on their land. We didn't interfere with his activities. Under a verbal agreement, they began operating as Lotas LLC. Things were going well, and they even built a new cowshed. In March last year, representatives of Muradov contacted Vladimir Ivanovich and offered to pay 50 million. They threatened to jail him if he didn't return the money,” Valentina Aimetova said.
When Aimetov refused to pay, Mikhail Yegorov was appointed as the new leader in April 2021. During the same meeting, they decided to report the ex-director's actions to the authorities. Interestingly, they forgot to invite the owner of a 33 percent share to the meeting. It was also discovered that Vladimir Aimetov gave his ex-wife over 1.4 thousand cows and calves for free under a certain sales agreement. Lagman Muradov attempted to challenge this agreement in the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region.
During the process, some interesting facts came to light. The main owner of Lotas, who never appeared in court, issued a power of attorney for representation from Crimea and failed to provide a contract for the sale of animals allegedly signed by the Aimetovs. There was a copy of the document in the file, but it was provided by the Krasnoufimsk veterinary station for combating animal diseases. It was later revealed that this copy was given to officials by the new director, Mikhail Yegorov, and they had never seen the originals.
Meanwhile, in 2012 and 2018, Valentina Aimetova leased all the listed livestock to Lotas as she temporarily stopped her farming activities. Representatives of Muradov insisted in two court instances that these contracts were fake, but both the former accountant of the enterprise and the Krasnoufimsk department of the agro-industrial complex confirmed the authenticity of the contracts.
The courts of two levels found Valentina Aimetova's explanations reliable. She stated that in 2011, Aimetov V.I., who conducts independent economic activity in the same region in a similar area, actually took over further activities in the LoTaS company from Muradov L.Kh., who subsequently did not carry out activities in the company. After the takeover of corporate control in 2021, all livestock was returned to the defendant. The court considered the sale and purchase agreement falsified, which Muratov tried to use to return the cows. The court's decision has already taken effect.
A similar situation with document falsification and a change in leadership occurred among farmers in the neighboring Achitsky municipal district. The Bakryazhsky rural consumer cooperative, led by Vladimir Nekrasov since 2009, was under attack. The company is involved in the cultivation of fodder and fodder grasses, as well as dairy farming. Last September, workers discovered that their cooperative suddenly changed ownership. According to the Federal Tax Service, Yekaterinburg businessman Andrey Knyazev was elected as the new leader at a certain face-to-face meeting, which people did not attend.
Vladimir Nekrasov
Photo: Achitskaya Gazeta
The cooperative had to quickly go to court to regain control of the agricultural enterprise. During the process, it was revealed that a certain meeting protocol provided to the tax office contained the signatures of two deceased individuals. Additionally, one of the signatories stated in court that she did not participate in any meetings and only saw Knyazev once when he brought documents related to the cooperative.
As a result, the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region revoked Knyazev's right to manage the agricultural enterprise. Interestingly, the candidate for the chairman position lodged a complaint to the police about the actions of the real head of the cooperative, Vladimir Nekrasov. They also attempted to accuse him of property withdrawal, but the case was closed due to lack of evidence. Meanwhile, the police initiated a case regarding Andrey Knyazev's document falsification.
It is known that the businessman is a co-owner (22.1% of the authorized capital) of FPC Alliance LLC from Yekaterinburg, which trades in solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels, including liquefied natural gas and oil. Observers believe that Knyazev's interest in the agricultural enterprise is due to its possession of land that is close to the federal highway Yekaterinburg-Perm and the planned high-speed highway (HSR) Yekaterinburg-Kazan.
“I don’t understand why he needs all this, Knyazev does not understand agriculture in principle. Now I bombarded the authorities with new complaints: we are having a tax audit for three years, a statement to the Economic Security Department (Department of Economic Security of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk Region. – Approx. Ed.) writes to me. The security forces came, they asked for documents, I think this time the case will be closed. As for the high-speed railway, yes, initially we planned to go through the lands that we cultivate. But then they took a plot nearby. Yes, even if they went through our territory, he would not have received access, we rent almost 2 thousand hectares from the Atompromkompleks company, – Vladimir Nekrasov, chairman of Bakryazhsky SEC, told Pravda UrFO.
