Investigation committee is looking for millions that have left the aid fund for defrauded real estate investors in the Leningrad Region

Alexander Dybin, Petersburg

According to the press service of the ICR, investigators came to the embezzlement in the regional fund during the investigation of criminal cases in the field of shared construction. According to the investigation, in 2020-2021, more than 56 million rubles were unreasonably spent from the fund.

“Unidentified officials of the fund for the protection of the rights of citizens participating in shared construction of the Leningrad Region, exercising their powers to dispose of subsidies from the federal budget and the budget of the Leningrad Region for a total amount of more than 1.9 billion rubles, organized and ensured the conclusion of contracts with a number of commercial organizations for the implementation of design and survey work at a deliberately inflated cost in the amount of about 100 million rubles,” the investigative committee said.

According to investigators, part of the paid work has already been completed earlier, since the new project was based on the original design documentation for the frozen house. Investigators believe that the actual cost of the work was about 36 million rubles.

Thus, unidentified officials allowed embezzlement in the amount of at least 56 million rubles.

“Other possible episodes are also being established related to the waste of funds allocated to finance other problematic facilities in respect of which the fund has the rights of a developer,” the UK said.

The Investigative Committee noted that together with the FSB and the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, a search was conducted in the fund, as well as seven searches in the apartments of the fund's employees and representatives of construction organizations. Documents and flash drives of interest to the investigation were confiscated.

At the reception of the fund, Novye Izvestia was told that they could not connect with the head Alexander Morgun, since "a commission from the federal fund has arrived and everyone is at the facilities." The government of the Leningrad region stated that they do not comment on the work of law enforcement agencies.

"The fund is operating normally, houses are being built," the government of the region specified.

Note that the topic of deceived equity holders is extremely painful for the governor of the Leningrad region Alexander Drozdenko. Shareholders of numerous problematic objects are classified as one of the main protest groups in the region. According to the SPARK database, in 2022, the equity holders support fund, through which the region and the federal center finance the completion of residential buildings, increased its spending by an order of magnitude. So in 2021, the fund signed contracts for the completion of houses in the amount of more than 4 billion rubles, this year - already more than 14 billion. In the plan for 2022, the fund had the completion of 57 apartment buildings.