In the Primorsky Territory, a court arrested three people on charges of torturing fishermen on the ships "Saint Vladimir" and "Bagration".
This was reported to RT by the press service of the Eastern Interregional Investigative Directorate for Transport of the Investigative Committee of Russia.
According to the investigation, from 2017 to 2021, the sailors-handlers on two fishing vessels fishing in the Kamchatka region, "under the pretext of fulfilling the plan, systematically beat the sailors, causing them physical and psychological suffering."
“The investigation is still continuing to establish the circle of the accused and the victims.
Three handlers have already been charged with torturing two or more persons by an organized group.
At the request of the investigator, he chose a preventive measure in the form of detention, "Natalia Chernakova, head of the press service of the investigation department, told RT.
In addition, the TFR continues to investigate the criminal case on the illegal imprisonment of the crew members of the Saint Vladimir and Bagration floating plants, as well as the Rustik refrigerator (clauses a, g, Part 2, Article 127 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Together with the FSB, Rosgvardia and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the investigators conducted searches in the Elbrus and Briner companies, which own the fishing vessels.
As RT was told in the transport department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Far Eastern Federal District, in mid-July one of the former employees of the shipowner company Elbrus contacted the police and told about the beatings of fishermen.
After the check, according to representatives of the department, a second criminal case was opened on illegal imprisonment.
"Get me out of here"
Fishermen from "Bagration" and their relatives talked about the cruel manners that reigned on board the ship, which, according to them, led to the death of two people.
So, in June 2020, two months after the start of the flight, 36-year-old Andrey Mineev committed suicide.
His wife Svetlana is convinced that the cause of the suicide was incessant beatings.
“Their voyage to sea began on April 8 and was supposed to last eight months.
On that day, Andrei called and said that their passports had been taken and their phones would soon be taken away, allegedly so that they would not send information to the company's competitors, '' the woman tells RT.
- Then we talked at the end of April, and at the end of May he almost cried during the call: “Light, in any way get me out of here - this is happening here!
I can't tell you over the phone. "
Andrey and Svetlana Mineev.
© Photo from personal archive
The couple came up with a legend that Svetlana was hospitalized in a serious condition, and Andrei needed to return to the shore to take care of their three young children, who were left alone.
However, according to Svetlana, the personnel department of "Elbrus" flatly refused to write off Andrey from the ship.
On June 15, Svetlana received a call and was told that her husband had committed suicide.
According to the official conclusion of the pathologist (available to RT), the cause of the man's death was mechanical asphyxia from squeezing the neck with a noose.
After his death, she learned that the last time her husband called her during a three-day overload in a Rustica refrigerator - the man had borrowed a phone from a local employee.
Andrey's shift colleagues, with whom Svetlana spoke, suggest that he committed suicide, because he could no longer endure the pain of the beatings.
“Andrey weighed the fish, the sailors told me what he got for the fact that he worked slowly.
He had a tattoo on his back, and other fishermen recalled that after the beatings, the skin was so blue that the tattoo was not visible.
Three days before the suicide, he could barely move his legs from pain and constantly held on to his ribs, ”says the widow.
According to her, one of the fishermen said that he saw Andrei on the deck on the night before his death: "His eyes were so plague, as if someone had possessed him."
He was told to go to bed, but he only replied that he did not want to.
The next morning they found him hanged. "
Svetlana appealed to the Investigative Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of Primorye with a demand to initiate criminal cases of murder and incitement to suicide, but the fact of the death of her husband has not yet been initiated.
Andrey got a job on a fishing boat to earn money for his family.
Before the flight, he worked in the seaside town of Dalnegorsk as a loader and a security guard in a store.
On two bets, the man received a little more than 30 thousand, there was not enough money.
Andrey Mineev has a wife and three children.
© Photo from personal archive
According to Svetlana, her husband was not prone to depression and suicide, he always took great care of the family.
“He is an energetic, healthy, hard-working man.
Far from being a coward.
He never even drank with me: the maximum he could drink beer in the evening.
He was a very family man and never in his life would he just leave us - I'm a thousand percent sure of that.
His life was more valuable than us, ”says Svetlana.
40 sailors left the ship
A few weeks after Andrei Mineev, in early July, his colleague Sergei died.
According to the fishermen who worked with him on the same voyage, the man wanted to escape from the Bagration: at night he jumped overboard when the ship was standing near the coast near the village of Ossora.
The man hoped to swim to land, but choked.
His body in a life jacket was found a few days later by sailors of another vessel.
“Sergei prepared to escape: for example, they found SIM cards in his pocket, hidden in a bag so that they would not get wet.
He also suffered from beatings, ”says one of the fishermen.
The body of the second dead fisherman was found in the sea.
© Photo from personal archive
According to RT, the security guards of "Bagration", the so-called "security guards", mocked the fishermen.
Three of them were arrested.
“The shift was given a quota: to process 30 tons of fish in six hours.
"Safeguards" followed our work.
If you work slowly, they come up and start hitting - with their feet and fists in the face, in the kidneys.
If you fall on the floor, do not expect that they will regret, on the contrary, they begin to finish off.
After you get up, all frightened and beaten, and try to do the work faster.
In my presence, the sailor was so beaten that his eye swam and he could not open it, "Alexander, a former fisherman of Bagration, told RT.
He also confirmed that the phones of all fishermen were taken at the beginning of the voyage and then refused to be given out, so it was almost impossible to report the violence ashore.
Fishermen "Bagration" in June 2020.
© Photo from personal archive
Alexander recalls that after the death of two people, 80 sailors on the ship wanted to leave the ship, but the management refused under various pretexts or said that there was very little left until the end of the voyage.
"Bagration" was supposed to enter Vladivostok, but after the death of the second person, the route was changed.
And many sailors were not ready for wintering on the ship.
Relatives had to send us warm things through the Rustic reloader, - says the interlocutor of RT.
According to Alexander, closer to winter in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, 30 sailors nevertheless got off the ship, later ten more people signed off.
In addition to the harsh working conditions, Alexander and his colleagues complain about salary fraud.
“Under the contract, they promised to pay me 500-700 thousand rubles for the flight.
As a result, I received 5 thousand rubles from the company and that's it, ”says Alexander, who is now in the case as a victim.
Magomed, who also worked as a fisherman on that voyage, received 400 thousand rubles for ten months of work.
“For such hard work - it's a penny.
Under the contract, they promised 700 thousand rubles.
During the whole time, I was able to contact my family five times.
"Safeguards" beat everyone that came to hand for any offense.
They could have hit with a tire iron or thrown a fish in the face, ”says Magomed.
"I'm afraid that only the lower classes will be imprisoned"
According to data from open sources, Elbrus LLC was founded in 2011 and registered in the Primorsky Territory.
Its founder, Alexander Zhestovsky, is a co-owner of four more firms in Primorye and Kamchatka, which specialize in fishing.
The company refused to comment to RT on the information that its employees are accused of mistreating personnel.
Ilya A., an experienced fisherman from Vladivostok, told RT that Elbrus has long had a dubious reputation among local sailors.
However, despite this, the company successfully recruits several dozen crew members for each flight, because you can get a job there with one passport.
One of the shifts of "Bagration" in the fish shop.
August 2020.
© Photo from personal archive
Another fisherman, Vitaly V., said that several years ago he himself got a job as a senior hold on the vessel "Bagration" according to all the rules and provided not only a passport, but also other necessary documents.
His work experience is very different from the testimony of other fishermen.
“Personally, I have an excellent relationship with the guards on the ship.
Yes, I had to work hard and work like a gallery - everyone was warned about this even before the flight.
I saw that some were late or did not know how to work at all.
For this, the "security guards" could give the sailor a slap, but in a purely fatherly way - nothing more.
I know that this is not the first time people have complained about this company, but I personally cannot say anything bad about them, ”the sailor summed up.
Vladivostok resident Anton Molchanov, who created a group of fishermen in social networks who suffered from the actions of the Elbrus company, told RT that for several years in a row, law enforcement officers did not react to reports in the media and social networks about the torture of people on the company's ships.
“It is not the first year that such terrible things have been written about Elbrus.
On these posts in social networks, we noted the account of the governor of the Primorsky Territory, and various bloggers, but there was never any reaction.
I think that now the criminal case has been launched, because it was initiated by the investigation department, which is located in the Khabarovsk, and not in the Primorsky Territory, ”says Molchanov.
He interviewed more than ten fishermen who were affected by the actions of the "security guards".
According to him, most of them went to sea for the first time.
“In social networks, some write that only lazy or drunkards were beaten on the courts.
It is not true.
All the guys with whom I spoke are very positive people who make plans for life, from whom you can take an example, "says the interlocutor of RT.
The widow of the deceased fisherman Svetlana Mineeva fears that law enforcement officers will not investigate the activities of the Elbrus administration.
“I am afraid that only the lower classes will be put in jail: the“ security guards ”themselves, and“ Elbrus ”will simply change its name, and as their ships went, they will go,” she says.