As it became known end of 2021 to Kommersant, the Prosecutor General’s Office found 385 accounts in Russian and foreign banks, opened both during service and after it, when they retired, in the family of former FSB officers Kulyukins. The oversight tried to sue all the funds in the accounts as corruption income, as well as two expensive apartments, which the ex-KGB officers clearly could not afford, but the defendants proved that they legally own part of the assets. At the same time, the prosecutors and the court did not believe in the version that the money was of Ukrainian origin.
According to Kommersant’s information, suspicious incomes were identified from Mikhail Kulyukin, the former head of the 3rd department of the 2nd department of the 2nd department of the logistics department of the 7th FSB service, and his wife Tatyana Kulyukina, who worked in the personnel department of the same management. The reason for the prosecutor’s check was information from a criminal case about fraud in the purchase of individual food rations (IRP), which were supplied to the Ministry of Defense, Rosgvardia and the FSB through Oboronprodkomplekt LLC. The co-owner of the LLC and the general director of the Mtsensk meat processing plant, which produces IRP, is Dmitry Atroshchenko, who, as Kommersant reported, last year admitted involvement in fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and began to testify. It is not known for sure, thanks to these testimonies or other data, the ICR learned about the assets of Mikhail Kulyukin, who was in charge of the secret service for the procurement of IRP. This data was passed on to the supervisor.
As a result, the inspectors found 385 accounts of the former business executive and his wife.
Mikhail Kulyukin opened 253 accounts in 35 banks from 2009 to 2020. His wife from 2013 to 2020 – 132 accounts in 33 banks.
True, at the time of the audit, there were only 203 accounts, including those in Sberbank, VTB, PSB, Uralsib, Svyazbank, Bank Saint Petersburg, etc., which held mainly amounts from 1.3 million to 4 , 7 million rubles, as well as $ 43 thousand.
All the money in these accounts, which the defendants did not report on, was considered by the Prosecutor General’s Office to be corruption income. In addition, it was established in the supervisory department that part of the illegal income Kulyukin, who already had an apartment, used in 2012-2013 to buy three more real estate objects – two apartments with a total area of more than 100 square meters. m each and non-residential premises with an area of 20 sq. m.
Thus, the Prosecutor General’s Office decided that within one year ex-officer Kulyukin acquired real estate, the cost of which is twice the total income of the spouses for eight years of service. At the same time, the suspicious apartments were registered with the mother of the Chekist, born in 1935, who lived in Ukraine and had no income, except for a pension, which did not have. Two years after her death, the apartments were inherited by a former supplier.
It is interesting that the defendants themselves unwittingly helped to disclose the data on the accounts to the supervision. A year ago, during a search conducted by TFR officers investigating a fraud case, among other things, a notebook with handwritten data on the placement of funds by the Kulyukins in deposit accounts in various banks with a reflection of their income, as well as a collection of two dozen jewelry was seized. including sapphires and diamonds.
The Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit with the Shcherbinsky District Court of Moscow to turn the alleged corruption income of the ex-KGB family into state revenue, but it was not as easy to win the case as, for example, with the billionaire from the FSB Kirill Cherkalin. The ex-lieutenant colonel, who was sentenced to seven years of strict regime in a special order, was confiscated assets estimated at 6.3 billion rubles.
The representative of the defendants during the proceedings explained that the money in the accounts opened by the couple of FSB officers during their service is quite consistent with their official salary and bonus income. All other funds, according to the defendants, are of Ukrainian origin. So, the ex-security officers argued, they actually bought apartments not at the expense of a pensioner, but at the money of Mikhail Kulyukin’s brother, a businessman living in Ukraine. He also gave them funds for placement in Russian and foreign banks. At first, the spouses really recorded this money in a notebook, and then there were so many receipts that they abandoned this business.
Mikhail Kulyukin honestly admitted that he did not even know how many accounts they opened and how much of their brother’s funds.
It should be noted that, in addition to the Prosecutor General’s Office, a lawsuit was filed against the defendants by Mikhail Kulyukin’s brother, who sought to return the money. The latter’s application was immediately rejected as he did not provide any evidence of investment in Russia. However, the prosecutor’s claim was only partially satisfied.
It is known that the supervision sued in favor of the Russian Federation the defendants’ apartment in the house on Akademik Vinogradov Street with a cadastral value of 17 million rubles. Another apartment of the Chekists with an area of 104 sq. m and a garage. Part of the money placed on the accounts was confiscated, including $ 45 thousand. At the same time, the court left some accounts to their owners. Among them, for example, were funds on a social account, to which Mikhail Kulyukin, as a veteran of military operations, received appropriate payments from the state. Jewelry must also be returned. The pawnshop, which the Prosecutor General’s Office turned to, recognized the jewelry as luxury items, but this was not enough for confiscation.
Disagreeing with the decision of the district court, pensioners Kulyukins appealed against it in the Moscow City Court.
