Yana Vikulova, first deputy editor-in-chief:
– Alexander Nikolaevich, I propose to start the conversation with innovations. Electronic vehicle passports appeared this week... Tell us more about this.
– An electronic vehicle passport will contain information about the car, including the car’s history, which will be stored in a special traffic police database. However, the driver will retain a vehicle registration certificate (VRC), which will be required when selling the car. The process of transition to electronic PTS will last two years, during which the traffic police will continue to parallelly issue paper PTS. But from July 1, 2017, their issuance will stop. Why is this necessary? The creation of such a unified database will make it possible to clear the common market of automobile equipment that does not meet safety requirements and will ensure state registration and supervision of compliance with the original design of automobiles. It will also strengthen control over their movements across customs borders, over the payment of customs and tax payments. And it can protect cars from theft, number plate alteration, illegal disassembly for spare parts, that is, from crime.
– Is it true that soon the traffic police will not issue license plates?
– According to the upcoming law, the State Traffic Inspectorate will only assign a car license plate, and the sign itself will need to be ordered from a special organization - now such companies are engaged in the production of duplicates. The new scheme will save budget funds and speed up the time for registering a car. After all, today we have to not only order these special products, but also distribute them among departments and store them somewhere. And all this costs money. And one more innovation that is now being actively discussed is that car dealers may represent the interests of car owners in the traffic police.
– How about giving away beautiful combinations of letters and numbers on license plates at special auctions?
– This topic also comes up periodically in the State Duma. But for now this is just an idea. Although not without meaning.
Yulia Yusupova, deputy editor-in-chief:
– Another know-how is the law on dangerous driving, which was recently adopted. I wonder how you will implement it? Will your employees go out onto the tracks without uniforms or identification marks?
– Punishment for dangerous driving will appear only in the fall of 2016. Violators may be fined 5 thousand rubles or more and even deprived of their rights. But we are already working in this direction today. Yes, we carry out hidden control over careless drivers who create dangerous situations on the road, we install additional cameras that do not respond to radars. It would be nice if car owners themselves reported offenders, as, for example, they do in Europe. But for some reason we consider this still shameful. Although these changes can activate road users to jointly fight against recklessness and legal disregard on the road. If they recorded a violation using a video recorder, they can send it to the State Traffic Inspectorate website for review. It is important for people to realize that violating traffic law and order is condemned by society.
Svetlana Golub, columnist:
– Drivers will probably invent radars that will recognize them too...
– Yes, our drivers are resourceful, but, unfortunately, not disciplined. In our country, the driving culture is not yet sufficiently developed, which must be taught from childhood. I hope someday we will correct this situation. And the Bentley driver will finally begin to respect the cyclist. And vice versa.
- I have one more question. Regarding OSAGO. To get a policy without additional services today, you have to go through seven circles of hell. Personally, I’ve been standing in line for several days now. Meanwhile, the insurance has expired, you have to drive without it, and therefore violate... What to do about it? Can your agency somehow influence the activities of insurance companies?
– I know about this. Recently, even the regional governor held a meeting on this issue. The main problem here is with insurance companies not holding enough policies.
- That's it. They give out only 10 pieces per day!
– The State Traffic Inspectorate checks the presence or absence of insurance during raids, when registering vehicles or processing documents in case of an accident. Private companies are responsible for issuing insurance policies; unfortunately, we cannot control them; this is not within the competence of the traffic police. Starting this year, the powers of the services that supervised the insurance business until recently have been transferred to the Central Bank. Today it is perhaps the only government agency vested with the powers of a control and supervisory body operating in the insurance services market. But so far, as we see, this problem has not been solved. What can I recommend? Apply for a policy online, there are no additional services. In addition, starting from July, RSA plans to introduce new policies that are more protected from counterfeiting. But the old ones, if their validity has not expired, will not lose their legitimacy.
– And another question on the topic. Today, in order to get an insurance policy, you need to undergo maintenance. But now any insurance company can do a technical inspection for 1000-1500 rubles, even without looking at the car. The result of this is that there are cars driving along the edge whose brakes fail while driving. As a result, other people die. What should I do? Is it possible to cancel a technical inspection at all? After all, it turns out to be completely useless?
First of all, the condition of the vehicle should concern its owner. If a person is interested in his own safety and the safety of the people around him, then he will never “cheat” anything with passing a technical inspection. Especially if he is a taxi driver or public transport driver! How can a bus driver, knowing that he is not working properly, get behind the wheel and take children somewhere? Here is the answer to your question. Only personal responsibility and self-control can make our roads safe!
Oksana Voronkova, deputy editor-in-chief:
“Maybe then we should completely ban older cars, since they often break down and interfere with traffic. What do you think?
Have you ever seen vintage cars? Sometimes you see and are surprised how good they are! And sometimes you look like it’s a new foreign car, but it’s already turned into trash. I don't think used cars should be banned. It is necessary to instill a sense of responsibility in drivers. The main cause of all road accidents is the human factor.
Lyudmila Malyutina, columnist:
– Tell me, do you have data on which region of Russia has the most polite drivers?
Yulia Yusupova:
– I would like to continue the topic of politeness. In summer tourists come to us. And on their cars too. And our hotel parking is very bad. Recently I witnessed how a car with out-of-town license plates was towed away in Anapa, and the unfortunate vacationers ran behind and did not know what to do. And this is called “Kuban hospitality”?
– Yes, motorists have many complaints about our towing service. We will restore order. I can speak about the actions of the traffic police officers. They must be nearby when the vehicle is towed and record a violation of parking rules. They must notify the dispatch center or the traffic police duty station that this or that car has been towed from there for such and such a violation.
Evgenia Yakovenko, columnist:
– I cover the topic of resorts and tourism in the newspaper, so I am concerned about this question: do road workers coordinate plans and schemes for repairing sections along the route to the sea with the traffic police. And how do you think the problem of summer resort congestion due to road repairs can be solved?
– Previously, all road work was coordinated with the State Traffic Inspectorate, we could set certain limits for road workers, if they did not meet the work deadlines, we had the right to impose penalties on them. But today this is not the case. The only thing we can do within the framework of our supervisory functions is to control whether they installed the signs and applied the markings correctly. At the same time, the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate regularly submits appropriate proposals and recommendations to the road management authorities regarding the postponement of certain stages of work, and road owners are informed of the need to exclude work that involves the introduction of reverse traffic in the summer.
But still, when traffic jams grow on the approach to the sea, everyone blames the State Traffic Inspectorate. Few people realize that many structures deal with security issues.
According to Kuban media, Major General Alexander Kapustin, head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for the Krasnodar Territory, has long been seeking appointment to a similar position, but in St. Petersburg. It is also known that the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, has already twice submitted Kapustin’s candidacy for approval to the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Civil Service and Personnel Issues and each time withdrew it.
The last time this happened was “in connection with an inspection” - which one, however, was not specified. Withdrawal of a candidacy in this case is a bureaucratic ploy to avoid an official decision. Questions arose to Major General Kapustin during an audit conducted by the Presidential Anti-Corruption Department. The streamlined wording actually hides suspicions of corruption.
On April 5, 2016, Kapustin was reprimanded for violations of anti-corruption legislation committed when submitting income certificates for 2014. According to the media, the claims could arise due to the lack of information in Kapustin’s declaration about the property registered in the name of his wife, Svetalana Ostanina, who permanently resides in St. Petersburg and holds the position of head of the administrative and operational department of the Mariinsky Theater.
According to published documents, in 2008, Ostanina purchased for 30,000 euros a one-level apartment with an area of 71.91 meters in the Magic Dreams apartments complex at St. Vlas, Yurta under Patya, Nesebar, 8256 Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. Alexander Kapustin’s declaration contains no information about foreign real estate in the European Union.
In addition, until September 2015, Svetlana Ostanina was listed as the founder of RostTransCom LLC, TIN 6165182064, registered in the Rostov region and operating in the transport sector in the Krasnodar Territory. This information was also missing from the declaration. And given Ostanina’s place of residence and field of activity, there is no doubt that her “entrepreneurial activity” in the south of Russia was in fact directly related to the major general himself and, at best, fell under the definition of a conflict of interest.
It may seem that the violations are not too serious and quite common - it is difficult to imagine a general who does not have similar flaws in his property declaration. But recently, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (and not only the Ministry of Internal Affairs) has become much less loyal to such forgetfulness of its employees.
For example, at the end of last year, “due to loss of trust,” police colonel, head of department “F” of the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Dmitry Katkov, was fired, who was found to have apartments in Montenegro. Alexander Kapustin escaped with strict disciplinary action. In the spring of 2016, his candidacy was rejected, and when he resubmitted the documents in December, the audit again revealed violations - the absence in the declaration of information about the income received by his wife from the sale of a car in the amount of 1,500,000 rubles. For the almost omnipotent head of the regional State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, spoiling relations with whom, as they say, “risks the loss of the opportunity to move around the region by car,” this looks like a mockery.
And this despite the fact that initially Alexander Kapustin was considered practically no alternative candidate for the post of head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, which has remained vacant for almost a year and a half after the former head of the department, Sergei Bugrov, retired.
Until 2011, Kapustin already worked in St. Petersburg: first as deputy head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Admiralteysky District Internal Affairs Directorate, and since 2006, as deputy head of the traffic police department of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region - the already mentioned Sergei Burgov (oversaw the Leningrad region).
His appointment to the post of head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for the Krasnodar Territory was associated with the region’s preparation for the Olympics in Sochi. Returning to the city on the Neva, where Kapustin lives with his wife and adult daughters, seemed like a logical continuation of his career... But precisely at the moment when the question of his appointment to St. Petersburg was being decided, in the Kuban the ground suddenly began to burn under the Major General’s feet.
In March 2016, in the city of Sochi, employees of the Investigative Committee arrested businessman Alexander Danilyuk, accused of mediating the transfer of a bribe of half a million rubles to a high-ranking traffic police officer. A few days later, as part of the same criminal case, the commander of the traffic police regiment of the traffic police department of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the city of Sochi, Andrei Gerashchenko, was detained, whom the court, however, refused to leave in custody.
During further investigation, facts of abuse and corruption were revealed on the part of the leadership of the traffic police regiment of the city of Sochi, as well as on the part of unidentified persons from the leadership of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in the Krasnodar Territory. The indicated persons were given instructions to traffic police officers to work directly with tow trucks of a number of commercial companies TekhIndustriya LLC, SochiTrakServis LLC, GSE LLC, White Sea LLC and Yug Service+ LLC, and not through a single dispatch center like this determined by the law of the Krasnodar Territory, and transport the evacuated vehicles to impound lots owned by these companies.
Coordination of the activities of these companies in 2014-2016. was carried out by Alexander Danilyuk, who was detained on suspicion of mediation in the transfer of a bribe. Moreover, the case materials contain information about Danilyuk’s payment for hotel stays and vacations for unidentified persons including the heads of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Krasnodar Territory, which automatically includes Kapustin among the suspects.
Against the backdrop of the corruption scandal, Kapustin’s candidacy for the post of head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, even without taking into account violations related to the income declaration, turned out to be a big question. When his candidacy was re-nominated in December 2016, during an internal audit against Kapustin through the Main Directorate for Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the relevant unit of the Russian FSB received instructions from unidentified higher-ups to prepare a positive certificate without taking into account the existing negative materials. But judging by the repeated revocation of documents from the Presidential Administration for Civil Service and Personnel Affairs, this did not help much. In fact, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was politely made to understand that the appointment of an employee who had compromised himself to a responsible post in the second most important city in the country was undesirable.
Meanwhile, the case of Sochi werewolves continues to gain momentum. For example, investigators from the Investigative Committee found that for two years, the municipal government agency “Unified Duty and Dispatch Service of the City of Sochi” did not receive a single request from traffic police officers to call tow trucks. Significant discrepancies were also identified in the data on the number of evacuated vehicles during this period (44,000 according to the traffic police and 11,000 according to commercial organizations).
In fact, all this time in Sochi there was an established business based on the illegal evacuation of vehicles to impound lots, the owners of which, for the right to work in this system, monthly paid 250,000 rubles from each site to the management of the traffic police regiment. In this regard, a letter was sent to the Prosecutor General's Office a proposal to conduct an appropriate general supervisory inspection.
Carrying out a large-scale audit could have catastrophic consequences for Kapustin. After all, the tow truck business, by all accounts, is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, commercial MREOs, farmed out to two businessmen close to the major general (Zimmerman and Stolyar), are an even more profitable business, with a turnover of about 70-80 million rubles per month.
In January of this year, the commander of the traffic police regiment of the traffic police in Sochi, Andrei Gerashchenko, who was involved in the same criminal case, was dismissed from the authorities based on the results of an internal audit. This means that Major General Kapustin may be asked to leave at any time - it’s good if he just retires.
The main candidate for the post of head of the St. Petersburg traffic police allegedly regularly provided assistance to the FSB in “sensitive situations”
The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has again sent documents to the Kremlin for the appointment of Major General Alexander Kapustin as head of the St. Petersburg State Traffic Safety Inspectorate. According to sources, his candidacy is being lobbied by the leadership of the FSB. Let us note that this is the fourth attempt to appoint Kapustin to this position. Previously, his candidacy was cut down by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, because of foreign real estate, which Kapustin did not indicate in his declaration.
Let us note that the post of head of the St. Petersburg traffic police has been vacant for almost a year and a half. When Kapustin’s translation was almost ready, various unpleasant episodes began to emerge in his biography
In March 2016, businessman Alexander Danilyuk was detained in Sochi, accused of mediation in the transfer of half a million bribes. As the investigation found, Danilyuk coordinated the activities of a number of commercial structures, whose tow trucks and impound lots were directly used by traffic police officers, bypassing the official procedure - through a single dispatch center. In the case materials, information appeared about Danilyuk’s payment for vacations and hotel stays for “unidentified persons from among the heads of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Krasnodar Territory,” one of whom is Kapustin.
On April 5, 2016, it turned out that the major general systematically “forgot” to indicate in the declaration an apartment in Bulgaria owned by his wife Svetlana Ostanina, who holds the position of head of the administrative and operational department of the Mariinsky Theater. According to published documents, in 2008 Ostanina purchased an apartment with an area of 71.91 square meters. m in the Bulgarian city of Sveti Vlas, in the Magic Dreams apartments complex. The purchase cost her 30 thousand euros. In addition, until September 2015, Ostanina was the founder of RostTransCom LLC. This company worked in the transport sector of the Krasnodar region, for which Kapustin was responsible by virtue of his position. This information was never included in any declaration of a high-ranking police officer. In addition, an internal audit revealed another violation: the head of the district traffic police did not indicate income from the sale of his wife’s car in the amount of 1.5 million rubles.
According to Novaya Gazeta’s source, Kapustin owes his patronage from Lubyanka to the help of the FSB in “sensitive situations.” Thus, on August 18, 2016, a serious accident occurred in the Krasnodar region, which was allegedly provoked by an FSB major general driving a Lexus. His foreign car drove into oncoming traffic and rammed a truck, which caught fire. This incident was not included in the traffic police reports of the Krasnodar region, thanks to the efforts of Kapustin, sources assure.
Major General Alexander Kapustin has been trying to fill the vacant position of head of the St. Petersburg traffic police for more than a year. As they say, he is driven north not only by the desire for career growth and reunification with his family, but also by the growing criminal case. The move is hindered in Moscow, where Kapustin is rejected over and over again. Including because of the discovery of real estate abroad.
Property sclerosis
On October 30, 2015, Sergei Bugrov, who served in this post for 10 years, left the post of head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. One of his deputies became acting. Yes, it remained that way. Almost a year and a half later, the St. Petersburg traffic police still does not have a chief. Meanwhile, at the other end of the country in the Krasnodar Territory, all this time his former deputy, head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Krasnodar Territory, Alexander Kapustin, has been languishing with the desire to take Bugrov’s place.
The media reported that Alexander Kapustin is the most likely candidate for this position back in 2015, immediately after Bugrov’s resignation. The version is quite realistic. In the early 2000s. Kapustin was the deputy head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Admiralteysky District Department of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg. And in 2006-2011, he became Bugrov’s deputy and oversaw the Leningrad region. From the St. Petersburg department he was sent to manage the traffic police of the Krasnodar Territory. It would seem like a completely acceptable candidate.
But time after time in Moscow, his candidacy is “wrapped up.” First in 2015, now in December 2016. Moreover, it is not just anyone who is refusing him, but the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Combating Corruption. The reason is the same - General Kapustin’s excessive forgetfulness regarding his income and property.
According to one version, in the income certificate, he forgot to indicate his wife’s one-level apartment of more than 70 meters on the Black Sea coast…. no, not in Sochi and not in Adler - in Bulgaria. In the prestigious Magic Dreams complex in Sunny Beach. The apartments were bought for almost 30 thousand euros, and now the same ones are being sold for more than 50 thousand.
Of course, an apartment in Bulgaria is not a villa on the Cote d'Azur. You can't call it crazy luxury. But from the point of view of the norms and rules in the Ministry of Internal Affairs system, this is the same unacceptable phenomenon. The Major General of Police is no ordinary person. Shoulder straps and status give not only privileges, but also impose serious restrictions. Let us recall that in 2014-2015, the Ministry of Internal Affairs initially did not recommend, and then forbade its employees to travel abroad. As for real estate abroad, they wanted to prohibit all government employees from owning it. The ban was not introduced. Bye. But there are no differences of opinion at the top regarding police officers. It's just not possible. And even more so for senior officers, and even in a NATO member country, where just these days the deployment of American troops begins under the slogan of protecting Eastern Europe from Russia. In general, now Bulgaria is quite a foreign country, and not the most loyal.
Of course, Alexander Kapustin could not help but know and understand all this. That’s why I tried to hide the apartment. It didn't work out. “Property sclerosis” was regarded as a serious violation of anti-corruption legislation, for which the general received a reprimand. On an informal level, perhaps it was the story with Bulgarian real estate that became a career death sentence...
But Alexander Kapustin did not calm down and again tried to apply for the St. Petersburg position. And again he received a harsh rebuke: “During an additional analysis of the materials in relation to the specified candidate, it was established that he did not reflect information about the income in the amount of 1.5 million rubles received by his wife from the sale of a car…. on the fact of the violations committed, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia should determine A.N. Kapustin. measure of legal responsibility..."
The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs heard the signal and asked for the proposal to appoint Kapustin to be withdrawn without consideration. Probably in order not to receive an official and final refusal and to be able to repeat the application.
Of course, in a different situation they could have turned a blind eye to these “mistakes.” But perhaps the scrupulousness of Kremlin officials is a hint to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: it is not worth appointing to such a high post in the second most important city in the country a person who does not understand what is possible and what is not for a high police rank and around whom new serious clouds of corruption are already gathering . It is from them, by the way, according to rumors, that Kapustin is trying to escape to St. Petersburg.
Privatization of evacuation
The desire of the Major General to move to St. Petersburg is quite understandable - the position is respectable, the city is familiar, his wife is there, his daughters are grown up, he became a grandfather not so long ago... But, as evil tongues say, it’s not so much about these understandable motives. It’s just that in the south, the major general is becoming more and more uncomfortable because of a criminal case about abuse of power by an as yet unknown group of people from the leadership of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Krasnodar Territory.
The essence of the matter in brief. According to the law of the Krasnodar Territory, traffic police inspectors of the traffic police must call a tow truck through the dispatch center when evacuating cars from the streets. But for two years, not a single call was received from Sochi. All 10 impound lots with tow trucks in Sochi belong to commercial structures, and a separate traffic police regiment of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Sochi worked with all of them directly. How did you work? Successful, but secretive. So much so that now no one knows how many cars were evacuated in two years. Entrepreneurs talk about 11,000, and the traffic police - 44,000. But as a result of the investigation of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia, the financial component of this work became clear.
In March last year, a criminal case was opened regarding the receipt of a bribe by an unidentified official. The first to be detained was businessman Alexander Danilyuk. Allegedly, he took a bribe of 500 thousand rubles. From another entrepreneur, Alexey Pridannikov, who owns 2 impound lots. Danilyuk, of course, was only an intermediary. The media clearly indicated that the ultimate beneficiary was the commander of the Sochi traffic police regiment Andrei Gerashchenko, who was detained in March but immediately released. According to the REN-TV channel, Pridannikov allegedly had to pay 250,000 every month for each parking lot in favor of the management of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate. All other commercial structures worked in the same way; this “project” was coordinated by the detained Danilyuk.
You need to understand that the traffic police system operates very strictly vertically. Everything that is collected “on the ground” according to a well-established scheme is sent upstairs. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the investigators did not stop at Gerashchenko and began to dig further and are looking for “other officials” involved in receiving money through the mediation of Danilyuk. The investigation materials already seem to contain evidence that he, in particular, paid for the hotel and vacation of “unidentified persons” from among the management of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Krasnodar Territory. Probably, the investigators were also interested in why the audit from the regional traffic police department that came to Sochi either did not reveal any violations, or the management of the central office turned a blind eye to them.
Last summer, many employees of the Sochi traffic police regiment and more than 20 officials were already interrogated as part of a criminal case. The prosecutor’s office of the Krasnodar region has already joined the “evacuation” case with its own checks. In a word, the case is developing and clearly one of the high ranks will soon become involved in it.
In this regard, of course, the question arises: could the head of the regional traffic police department not know for two years what was happening in such a fundamentally important city as Sochi? Very doubtful. Maybe it is this knowledge that causes General Kapustin a strong desire to quickly leave the Krasnodar region and move to the comfortable chair of the St. Petersburg traffic police chief. It’s getting hot in the south, the hour is so uneven that you’ll have to go to completely different places and sit in chairs that are completely uncomfortable and dishonorable.
NGK Investigations Department
The career of the head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for the Krasnodar Territory is covered by a certificate
Andrey DemidovThe head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for the Krasnodar Territory, Major General Alexander Kapustin, according to Kuban media, has been seeking appointment to a similar position in St. Petersburg for a year now. Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev twice submitted Kapustin’s candidacy for approval to the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Civil Service and Personnel and twice withdrew it. The last time, as follows from documents released by journalists, “in connection with an inspection” - what kind of inspection, however, was not specified. Withdrawal of a candidacy in this case is a bureaucratic ploy to avoid an official decision. Questions arose to Major General Kapustin during an audit conducted by the Presidential Anti-Corruption Department. The streamlined wording actually hides suspicions of corruption.
On April 5, 2016, Kapustin was reprimanded for violations of anti-corruption legislation committed when submitting income certificates for 2014. According to the media, claims could arise due to the lack of information in Kapustin’s declaration about the property registered in the name of his wife, Svetalana Ostanina, who permanently resides in St. Petersburg and holds the position of head of the administrative and operational department of the Mariinsky Theater. According to published documents, in 2008, Ostanina purchased for 30,000 euros a one-level apartment with an area of 71.91 meters in the Magic Dreams apartments complex at St. Vlas, Yurta under Patya, Nesebar, 8256 Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. Alexander Kapustin’s declaration contains no information about foreign real estate in the European Union. In addition, until September 2015, Svetlana Ostanina was listed as the founder of RostTransCom LLC, TIN 6165182064, registered in the Rostov region and operating in the transport sector in the Krasnodar Territory. This information was also missing from the declaration. And given Ostanina’s place of residence and field of activity, there is no doubt that her “entrepreneurial activity” in the south of Russia was in fact directly related to the major general himself and, at best, fell under the definition of a conflict of interest.
It may seem that the violations are not too serious and quite common - it is difficult to imagine a general who does not have similar flaws in his property declaration. But recently, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (and not only the Ministry of Internal Affairs) has become much less loyal to such forgetfulness of its employees. For example, at the end of last year, “due to loss of trust,” police colonel, head of department “F” of the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Dmitry Katkov, was fired, who was found to have apartments in Montenegro. Alexander Kapustin escaped with strict disciplinary action. In the spring of 2016, his candidacy was rejected, and when he resubmitted the documents in December, the audit again revealed violations - the absence in the declaration of information about the income received by his wife from the sale of a car in the amount of 1,500,000 rubles. For the almost omnipotent head of the regional State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, spoiling relations with whom, as they say, “risks the loss of the opportunity to move around the region by car,” this looks like a mockery.
And this despite the fact that initially Alexander Kapustin was considered practically no alternative candidate for the post of head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, which has remained vacant for almost a year and a half after the former head of the department, Sergei Bugrov, retired. Until 2011, Kapustin already worked in St. Petersburg: first as deputy head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Admiralteysky District Internal Affairs Directorate, and since 2006, as deputy head of the traffic police department of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region - the already mentioned Sergei Burgov (oversaw the Leningrad region). His appointment to the post of head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for the Krasnodar Territory was associated with the region’s preparation for the Olympics in Sochi. Returning to the city on the Neva, where Kapustin lives with his wife and adult daughters, seemed like a logical continuation of his career... But precisely at the moment when the question of his appointment to St. Petersburg was being decided, in the Kuban the ground suddenly began to burn under the Major General’s feet.
In March 2016, in the city of Sochi, employees of the Investigative Committee arrested businessman Alexander Danilyuk, accused of mediating the transfer of a bribe of half a million rubles to a high-ranking traffic police officer. A few days later, as part of the same criminal case, the commander of the traffic police regiment of the traffic police department of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the city of Sochi, Andrei Gerashchenko, was detained, whom the court, however, refused to leave in custody. During further investigation, facts of abuse and corruption were revealed on the part of the leadership of the traffic police regiment of the city of Sochi, as well as on the part of unidentified persons from the leadership of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in the Krasnodar Territory. The indicated persons were given instructions to traffic police officers to work directly with tow trucks of a number of commercial companies TekhIndustriya LLC, SochiTrakServis LLC, GSE LLC, White Sea LLC and Yug Service+ LLC, and not through a single dispatch center like this determined by the law of the Krasnodar Territory, and transport the evacuated vehicles to impound lots owned by these companies. Coordination of the activities of these companies in 2014-2016. was carried out by Alexander Danilyuk, who was detained on suspicion of mediation in the transfer of a bribe. Moreover, the case materials contain information about Danilyuk’s payment for hotel stays and vacations for unidentified persons including the heads of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Krasnodar Territory, which automatically includes Kapustin among the suspects.
Against the backdrop of the corruption scandal, Kapustin’s candidacy for the post of head of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, even without taking into account violations related to the income declaration, turned out to be a big question. When his candidacy was re-nominated in December 2016, during an internal audit against Kapustin through the Main Directorate for Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the relevant unit of the Russian FSB received instructions from unidentified higher-ups to prepare a positive certificate without taking into account the existing negative materials. But judging by the repeated revocation of documents from the Presidential Administration for Civil Service and Personnel Affairs, this did not help much. In fact, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was politely made to understand that the appointment of an employee who had compromised himself to a responsible post in the second most important city in the country was undesirable.
Meanwhile, the case of Sochi werewolves continues to gain momentum. For example, investigators from the Investigative Committee found that for two years, the municipal government agency “Unified Duty and Dispatch Service of the City of Sochi” did not receive a single request from traffic police officers to call tow trucks. Significant discrepancies were also identified in the data on the number of evacuated vehicles during this period (44,000 according to the traffic police and 11,000 according to commercial organizations). In fact, all this time in Sochi there was an established business based on the illegal evacuation of vehicles to impound lots, the owners of which, for the right to work in this system, monthly paid 250,000 rubles from each site to the management of the traffic police regiment. In this regard, a letter was sent to the Prosecutor General's Office a proposal to conduct an appropriate general supervisory inspection. Carrying out a large-scale audit could have catastrophic consequences for Kapustin. After all, the tow truck business, by all accounts, is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, commercial MREOs, farmed out to two businessmen close to the major general (Zimmerman and Stolyar), are an even more profitable business, with a turnover of about 70-80 million rubles per month.
In January of this year, the commander of the traffic police regiment of the traffic police in Sochi, Andrei Gerashchenko, who was involved in the same criminal case, was dismissed from the authorities based on the results of an internal audit. This means that Major General Kapustin may be asked to leave at any time - it’s good if he just retires.
