In Bashkiria, the court ruled to confiscate the property of the former deputy minister of housing and communal services of the republic Ildus Mamaev in favor of the state.
Last year, an audit by the prosecutor's office showed that the official clearly does not live on labor income.
For example, with an official salary of 208 thousand rubles a month, Mamaev bought foreign currencies for more than 113.62 million rubles, the republican supervisory agency reported.
In the lawsuit, the state prosecutor noted that the official could not explain what legal means he used to purchase real estate, cars and currency.
As a result, two apartments in Ufa and two plots in Crimea were seized from Mamaev.
As RT was told in the united press service of the courts of Bashkiria, Mamaev tried to hide the property from official declaration.
For this, he, according to the court, concluded donation agreements with relatives for part of the property.
These transactions were invalidated.
At the trial, the state prosecutor insisted that the property of the Mamaev family be turned into state revenue in an amount equal to the value of the purchased currency, since at the time of filing the claim, the currency was withdrawn from the accounts of the defendants.
Past the budget
The federal law “On control over the compliance of the expenses of persons holding public office and other persons with their income” came into force in 2013.
The prosecutor's office monitors that the expenses of officials and their immediate family members correspond to official income.
If it turns out that a civil servant is living beyond his means and cannot explain where the money came from, then the supervisory authority demands that the illegally acquired property be seized through the court in favor of the state.
A civil lawsuit for confiscation is filed even if the official is not involved in a criminal corruption case.
As RT was told in the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, last year the courts satisfied 38 claims for the confiscation of "corrupt" property in the amount of 74.8 billion rubles.
The department notes that the amount has become a record since 2017.
However, in reality, only one tenth reached the treasury - 7.8 billion rubles.
The prosecutor's office explains that there was a similar difference in previous years.
So, in 2019, the budget received 9.2 billion from the sale of illegally acquired property, although the courts satisfied claims in the amount of 21.4 billion rubles.
In 2018, the treasury received 76 million rubles with satisfied claims in the amount of 311 million rubles.
In 2017, the budget received 134 million rubles, and the courts satisfied claims in the amount of 9.2 billion rubles.
The department noted that the difference is explained by the “absence of property from persons” in respect of whom the courts satisfied the claims, or by the fact that by the time the property was sold, its value was decreasing: “For example, at the time of filing the claim, the car was assessed as new, but by the time of sale it had lost in the price ".
Discounts on confiscated goods
RT found out how cheap the cars confiscated from officials are at the time of the auction.
For example, foreign cars seized from the ex-governor of the Sakhalin region Alexander Khoroshavin, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison for corruption, were put up for auction three times lower than the value announced in court.
So, in the list of property seized from an official, the 2014 Bentley Continental GT car was estimated at 13.3 million rubles.
But two years later, the foreign car was put up for auction for 4.4 million rubles.
As a result, it was sold for 5.96 million.
The description for the lot said that the car "has defects, was in storage for a long time, was exposed to negative environmental influences": "It is possible to use it for its intended purpose when carrying out diagnostics and repairs based on the results of diagnostics."
Another Khoroshavin's car, the 2014 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG 4MATIC, was put up for auction in 2017 with an initial cost of 4.9 million rubles, although in a court decision from 2016 the cost was more than twice as high - 11 million rubles.
Whether the auction took place is not indicated in the tender documentation.
Data on the sale of the car seized from Alexander Khoroshavin in the search system of tenders and purchases in Russia and the CIS countries
In early 2020, the property of the former vice-governor of the Vladimir region Dmitry Khvostov, his family and acquaintances for a total of 91 million rubles was confiscated.
Among the property seized from Khvostov are four apartments, two land plots, a house, two garages, two foreign cars, as well as jewelry and watches.
The court's decision on one of the cars - a 2015 white Lexus GS350 - states that its cost is "at least 1,779,000 rubles."
Now the car has already been put up for auction, the initial cost is 784,400 rubles.
Data on the sale of the car seized from Dmitry Khvostov on the portal of the Federal Property Management Agency
“Of course, during the auction, the value of the goods may rise, but this growth is usually insignificant.
The sale of confiscated property is now a source of huge earnings for electronic platforms that conduct auctions and companies that assess the value of goods, ”Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee (NAC), said in an interview with RT.
Rosimushchestvo notes that a decrease in value may occur during the auction if there are no buyers for the goods.
"The sale of property in the absence of demand during the deadline for accepting applications [for the auction], is carried out with a decrease in the initial price in stages by 30, 60 and 90%," the department said.
As for the confiscated real estate, it is either sold at a discount or rented out.
In 2016, the court turned the property in favor of the state from the ex-governor of the Sakhalin region, Alexander Khoroshavin, who was sentenced two years later to 13 years of strict regime for bribes.
The list of real estate (available to RT) included several apartments and a residential building with an area of 935.8 m² in the village of Uspenskoe near Moscow.
At the time of the court's decision on confiscation, the cost of the house was 59 million rubles.
On the same site there was a garage with an area of 170 m², it was estimated at 4.5 million rubles.
Both buildings before the arrest belonged to Ilya Khoroshavin, the son of an official.
At the end of 2019, an auction was organized to lease out the land with these buildings.
As follows from the documentation, the initial price of the lease agreement for a plot with a house and a garage was 2 million rubles per year.
On the website of the organization that held the auction, it is indicated that by the time the bids were accepted for the auction, only one participant was registered - Business Capital LLC.
In this case, the lot was sold.
Last year, the house, confiscated from the Khoroshavins' family, with an area of more than 900 square meters, was leased for 2 million rubles a year.
“This means that the site was leased at the initial cost of the contract to the only participant who applied for the auction,” explained RT at Lex Land Consulting, which organized the auction.
- As for the setting of the minimum price, we, as the organizers of the auction, do not make such decisions.
We receive information about the lot and its value from the Federal Property Management Agency.
We also do not have the right to rate the product. "
At the same time, judging by the advertisements on the network, renting a house with an area of 1 thousand square meters in the village of Uspenskoye will cost those who wish at least 1.2 million rubles a month.
Both a person and a legal entity can buy confiscated real estate with a big discount.
However, experts say that ordinary citizens rarely pay attention to such lots.
“The property that is sold by a court decision has a negative emotional connotation from the buyer's point of view.
With such a purchase, he carries risks: what if it turns out that during the confiscation some procedures were violated or the documents were incorrectly drawn up, - says RT Chairman of the Korchago and Partners Bar Association Yevgeny Korchago.
According to him, usually professional buyers - companies and realtors - are interested in buying confiscated property in order to then put the property up for sale at market price.
At the same time, the organizers of the auction understand that realtors, in any case, will not buy the confiscated real estate at market value - because then they lose the benefit in the resale.
“Few of the ordinary buyers of apartments or garages enter specialized electronic sites for the sale of confiscated goods.
The demand for such lots is reduced and the seller is forced to lower the price tag, and often this happens in stages, when there are not enough bids for the auction.
Of course, the sale of confiscated goods at reduced prices may be associated with corruption factors, but there are also quite objective reasons for discounts on real estate, ”the lawyer notes.
Opaque system
According to the chairman of the NAC, the work of the Federal Property Management Agency on the sale of confiscated savings is too opaque.
In addition, he notes that in Russia there is no single electronic platform through which assets confiscated from corrupt officials are sold.
“Now such platforms are both the site of the Federal Property Management Agency itself and other electronic resources that have received the appropriate license from the state,” the expert explains.
“As a result, even specialists find it difficult to track what happened to this or that confiscated value, where, to whom and when it was sold.”
Kabanov is sure that the most honest and transparent scheme will be the sale of confiscated goods at a predetermined price.
It is worth noting that the Accounts Chamber, based on the results of the last audit of the Federal Property Management Agency, came to the conclusion: in 2017, the department spent more on the storage of confiscated property than it received from its sale.
According to the auditors, the reason for this was "insufficient regulation" of the sale of property.
As reported to RT in the Federal Property Management Agency, during this time, several government decrees were adopted, which helped to regulate the process of turning confiscated assets into state ownership.
"At the end of 2020, revenues from the relevant area of activity exceeded the expenditure of budgetary funds for the storage of movable confiscated and other property turned into state ownership," the press service of the department noted.
At the same time, Rosimushchestvo did not report exactly how much was spent on storing the confiscated goods.
As for state revenues, as noted in the department, over the past three years, this figure for movable property has increased from 7.8 million rubles in 2017 to 13.9 million rubles in 2020.
The Rosimushchestvo RT said that virtually all property confiscated from corrupt officials, including cars, wristwatches, luxury goods and art, goes to the auction.
“Until now, there are no facts of destruction of movable“ corrupt ”property transferred to the Federal Property Management Agency.
All property is sent for sale and sold, "the department said at RT's request.
The Prosecutor General's Office notes that a special working group is monitoring the execution of court decisions on the return of illegally acquired funds to the treasury.
“Today the efforts of the prosecution authorities are primarily aimed at eliminating subjective reasons - the so-called human factor.
We have strengthened supervision over the activities of the Federal Property Management Agency and the Federal Bailiff Service, whose competence includes the execution of court decisions and the sale of the specified property, ”the department said.
Long way to budget
At the same time, the National Anti-Corruption Committee (NAC) notes that so far there is a significant gap in the legislation: it is possible to return illegally acquired funds from bank accounts to the budget only within the framework of criminal, not civil proceedings.
However, it takes more time to process criminal claims.
For example, in October last year, the Gagarinsky Court of Moscow ruled to seize 32.5 billion rubles from the former Minister for the Open Government Mikhail Abyzov.
The money is kept in the accounts of offshore companies owned by Abyzov, it was noted in the lawsuit of the Prosecutor General's Office.
Although the amount confiscated is impressive, the procedure for returning the money to the treasury can begin only after the court has made a final decision on the case of Abyzov himself.
He was detained as a suspect in the spring of 2019, the final charge was presented in August last year, when the verdict will be announced is unknown.
“In the course of the investigation of a criminal case on corruption, the prosecutor's office may apply for the arrest of the property of the accused.
In practice, the consideration of such criminal cases takes a long time - up to three years or more.
All this time, property owners are forced to appeal against arrests and cannot use real estate and funds, ”says RT candidate of legal sciences, lawyer Ruslan Koblev.
Now a bill is under consideration in the State Duma that will allow the courts to return money to the budget from the accounts of officials if the investors cannot prove that they have earned these funds legally.
On May 18, the State Duma approved the initiative in the first reading.
If the bill is passed, the Prosecutor General's Office will check the correspondence between the official's income and receipts to his bank account.
If a difference of 10 thousand rubles or more is revealed, the prosecutor will have to check and go to court.
The NAC is confident that in Russia it is necessary to equate the corruption crime of a civil servant with treason.
At the same time, "profitability from corrupt officials will increase" if the link between voluntary compensation for material damage and mitigation of punishment is strengthened, Kirill Kabanov believes.
“If the embezzlement of budgetary funds is recognized as treason, then the convicted person faces from twelve to twenty years in prison.
Now imagine that a person does not have the right to parole and amnesty if he has not made amends.
This “if” will be a very strong incentive for people to return money to the budget, ”the chairman of the NAC is sure.
Under Russian law, voluntary compensation for damage can be regarded by the court as a mitigating circumstance, however, notes Kabanov, in practice such a "deal with justice does not work."