As it became known to Kommersant, the court at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office re-arrested the assets of the former head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Stavropol Territory Alexei Safonov and his relatives. Under interim measures were two dozen real estate objects, including the famous house with a golden toilet registered in his mistress, as well as six foreign cars. The defendants tried to rewrite some of the assets to other persons, so they may be charged an equivalent of their value.
Interim measures were imposed on the assets of Colonel Safonov and his relatives at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office by the Industrial District Court of Stavropol. Prosecutors learned about them, supervising the investigation of a criminal case, on the basis of which the ex-head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate is accused by the TFR of taking bribes (part 6 of article 290 of the Criminal Code) as part of an organized group from freight carriers.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Aleksey Safonov has served in the internal affairs bodies since 1999. After graduation, since 2001, he served as a simple traffic police inspector, and ten years later he headed the regional traffic police. Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev fired him in August this year in connection with violation of the terms of the contract.
Dealing with the colonel’s assets, the supervision found out that, hiding them from declaring, Alexei Safonov recorded the property to his mother Svetlana, ex-wife Irina Safonova, her mother Lydia Gubareva, as well as to the last concubine Elena Psel, with whom he “ran a joint household “And raised three children. According to the calculations of prosecutors, from 2011, when he headed the traffic police department, and until 2021, former and current members of the officer’s family acquired property, the cost of which “significantly” exceeds their income.
We are talking about 22 real estate objects and 6 foreign cars, estimated at no less than 83 million rubles.
Note that the assessment of houses, apartments and plots was carried out according to their cadastral value, and the market value was several times higher.
On the officer himself, there was only a house with an area of 232 sq. m in his native village Novomaryevskaya, which is 15 km from Stavropol. A three-story brick mansion, registered in 2020, according to the cadastre, was worth only 1.2 million rubles.
His mother was assigned another house with an area of 133 sq. m on a plot of 895 sq. m in the Stavropol garden partnership “Sputnik”. In the same 2017, when the woman became the owner of real estate, a Nissan Qashqai was acquired in her name.
Former wife Irina, Colonel Safonov left a house of 285 sq. m on a plot of 600 “squares” in the dacha partnership “Polet” of Stavropol. The house was acquired by the officer himself back in 2011, and six years later, upon divorce, he handed it over to his wife. In addition, the woman received from her ex-husband a 2019 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350D and a Mercedes-Benz E 220, released a year later, as well as a 45 sq. m in the regional center.
In 2015, in the name of Irina’s mother, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, plots with an area of 496 sq. m and 500 sq. m in the Stavropol dacha association “Meliorator-3”, on which, after the merger, a house of 685 sq. m. Note that this is the most expensive family property – back in 2019 it was estimated at more than 13 million rubles.
Finally, thanks to Mr. Safonov, Colonel’s common-law wife Elena Psel, thanks to Mr. Safonov, became the owner in Stavropol of a part of the Marshal shopping and office center on Tukhachevsky Street and three small non-residential premises on 45 Parallel Street. She owned three apartments of 63 sq. m, 76 sq. m and 178 sq. m in the regional center. Another woman, as a participant in shared construction, is to receive on December 31 in St. Petersburg in the elite residential complex “Etalon on the Neva” (Obukhovskoy Oborony Avenue, 70). The contract with the developer for 14 million rubles. already fully paid. In addition, a 2012 BMW X6, a 2019 Toyota Camry and a 2020 BMW X7 were found in the garage of the chief traffic cop’s companion. But her main asset is a house with an area of 449 sq. m, which was registered in 2014 on a plot of 812 “squares” at 17 Sipyagina Street in Stavropol. Note that if the land, according to the documents, was purchased for only 100 thousand rubles, then the cadastral value of the house was already almost 6 million rubles. According to the latest expert assessment, carried out in 2021, the house and the land under it at their market value pulled by 30.8 million and 6.9 million rubles. respectively.
This two-story mansion with gilded sanitary ware became known throughout the country after the arrest of Colonel Safonov in the summer of 2021.
In court, when the officer was choosing a preventive measure, he confirmed that he lived in this house, where he allegedly did not like much, because it was established before him.
The family’s legal income, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, did not in any way allow them to acquire all these assets. So, according to the estimates of supervision, in the period of claim from 2008 to 2021, Alexey Safonov officially received 12.2 million rubles, the income of his mother was 83 thousand, his former wife – 2.7 million, mother-in-law – 2.4 million, and his concubine – 811 thousand rubles. The total amount of income for 14 years of work of the defendant Safonov, as well as former and current members of his family, barely exceeded 18 million rubles, which would not even be enough for a family car fleet.
Real estate and cars were registered by officer Safonov on other persons, the supervision believes, in order to hide them from declaration and hide the criminal origin of the assets. It was decided to re-arrest them after the defendants, after the start of their criminal prosecution and the imposition of interim measures, tried to rewrite part of the assets, including the house and land on Sipyagin Street, to other persons. The house in the suburbs of Stavropol and part of the commercial real estate were sold at all, so the supervisory authority wants to recover from the main defendant and his cohabitant their cadastral equivalent.
Defense of Mr. Safonov refrained from commenting, citing the fact that she did not know the content of the prosecutor’s claim and the motives for which the assets were arrested and are going to turn into state revenue.
The head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Stavropol Territory, Aleksey Safonov, was detained on July 20 on suspicion of taking bribes worth 19 million rubles. Together with him, they took into custody the former head of the UGIBDD department Alexander Arzhanukhin, inspector Vitaly Melchikov and four civilians. According to the investigation, since 2017, members of this group have been manufacturing and selling “passes not provided for by any regulatory enactments” that allow carriers of grain and other goods to transport goods “with violations of administrative law”, including through traffic police posts. Soon after the arrest of Alexei Safonov, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Vladimir Kolokoltsev initiated the dismissal of the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Stavropol Territory, Major General of Police Sergei Shchetkin.
The fact that Colonel Safonov and his relatives were found to have numerous undeclared assets, in an interview with RIA Novosti on the International Day against Corruption, said Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov.
The claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office against Mr. Safonov and other defendants is expected to be considered at the end of December.
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