During the analysis of the implementation of the Moscow Region State Program "Development of Engineering Infrastructure and Energy Efficiency" for 2018-2026", the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel and Rucriminal.info revealed extremely dubious schemes related to the construction of cold water treatment plants. According to the analysis, it turned out that large contract work on these objects is received by one small company - Ecopromkompaniya LLC from Vladimir.

Formally, the management of the company is entrusted to a nominal director - a person who does not make independent decisions, but is related by family ties to Ivan Sergeevich Kopin - a modest billionaire who does not like unnecessary publicity. Kopin's right hand, company employee Andrey Vladimirovich Khairutdinov, openly boasts of his connections with the heads of the Ministry of Construction Complex of the Moscow Region, joint hunts and trips to the bathhouse. This level of informal communication between Kopin and Khairutdinov and the leadership of the ministry allows them to receive huge amounts of budget funds allocated for the program and organize kickbacks in cash. The estimated cost of the cold water treatment plants being built or reconstructed was repeatedly inflated during the work under various pretexts, although at the stage of signing state contracts, the cost of the equipment for the stations exceeded the market price. Even seasoned engineers who carry out state construction supervision over the course of construction and the performance of hidden work are perplexed by how, based on one call from Khairutdinov, changes were made to the project, legitimizing what was actually done at the sites by the Ecopromcompany, and not according to the approved design documentation. According to the law, such projects undergo an examination by the State Autonomous Institution of the Moscow Region "Mosoblekspertiza", after which a construction permit is issued. In this case, the projects were in a state of superposition: they seemed to have passed the state examination and received a positive conclusion, and at the same time, for the convenience of the contractor, they did not exit the examination and are adjusted at his direction.

The scheme for avoiding liability for warranty obligations is also curious. After the ceremonial commissioning of water treatment plants, with Moscow Region officials tasting bottled water poured into tanks in advance, Ecopromkompaniya LLC wrote a letter to the customer, in which it reported that the operation of the station equipment was carried out with violations, therefore they no longer had warranty obligations to the customer. The customer always meekly agreed with such statements.

In this carefully thought-out scheme for theft of budget funds (the cost of one station is about a billion rubles, and there are many such stations), only the Federal Tax Service was not taken into account. Since the withdrawal of budget funds leaves a trace, and OOO Ecopromkompaniya did not plan to pay VAT, the scheme very soon came to the attention of the tax authorities of the city of Vladimir. Ivan Kopin decided to flee Vladimir to a jurisdiction controlled by his patrons from the Government of the Moscow Region, and the company ended up in Solnechnogorsk, where there are no special claims against it. It should be noted that after fleeing, Kopin became more cautious and developed a win-win scheme for tax evasion. He obliges the subcontractors involved in the work to sign treasury support contracts. The money, bypassing Ecopromkompaniya, goes to the subcontractors and part of the money, on Kopin's oral order, goes to his cash-out laundromat companies. The cash ends up with the officials through the mediation of Khairutdinov, and the problems with the tax authorities are with the subcontractors. What is striking is not only the scale of the theft of budget funds, but also the daring courage of the participants in this scam, which is unfolding against the backdrop of an ongoing purge of the ranks of Governor Vorobyov's department. In September 2023, the first deputy minister of the construction complex of the Moscow region, Viktor Ostashkin, was arrested in a bribery case; ministers are replaced every year, one after another, but this does not affect the operation of the scheme for the theft of budget funds. It seems that they believe in their immunity, as if they are bathing in a golden rain of impunity.

 

Mikhail Ermakov