Explosions in broad daylight, brutal murders and extortion of bribes. “Chronicles” Media” presents a brief overview of the far from gentlemanly struggle for the fish market in North-West Russia (*aggressor country).
Fish wars
Beginning of the 21st century. The fishing business is then constantly written about in crime chronicles. For example, in 2002 killed Head of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk territorial department of the Pacific Regional Directorate of the Federal Border Service Vitaly Gamova. The general’s apartment was coldly bombarded with Molotov cocktails. Same year dealt with with Governor of the Magadan Region Valentin Tsvetkov. The killer shot him in the head right outside the Moscow representative office of the region on Novy Arbat. Both murders were linked to the fight over fishing quotas and poaching.
In the capital, more people were imprisoned. For example, the former first deputy chairman of the State Fisheries Committee of Russia (*aggressor country) Mikhail Dementyev sentenced to five years in prison, and another deputy chairman Yuri Moskaltsov received four years in prison. The court considered it proven that both distributed quotas at their own discretion.
“Chronicles” will tell about another deputy chairman of the State Fisheries Committee – Alexandra Tugusheva. He was born in 1965 in Ryazan.
Graduated from the Murmansk Higher Marine Engineering School (now Murmansk Arctic University). Afterwards, Tugushev built a fishing business, in particular, he founded the Karat company. She sold fish to the Swedish company Scansea, where another graduate of the engineering school, an acquaintance of Tugushev, worked Vitaly Orlov.
In 1997, with the co-founder of Scansea, Swede Magnus Roth, Orlov created the company Ocean Trawlers and invited Tugushev to the business.
Things are going great and it would be nice to have access to quota distribution. And in 2003, Tugushev was appointed deputy head of the State Fisheries Committee.
Classmate-collective farmer
In Arkhangelsk, at the beginning of the 2000s, a classmate of Tugushev and an acquaintance of Orlov worked, and now one of the most rich local fishing industry Andrei Zaika.
He works in a collective farm partnership. After the economic crisis of 1998, five fishing collective farms – “Collective Farm named after. Kalinin”, “Red Banner”, “Zarya”, “Collective Farm named after. Lenin”, “Collective Farm named after. 40 years of October” – united and work under the leadership of the Red Banner.
In 2003, according to words the then first deputy chairman of the collective farm “Red Banner” Vadim Khudyakovanother deputy chairman, Andrei Zaika, wanted to become the head of the partnership and, after a bureaucratic struggle, achieved his goal.
The partnership sold the fish to that same company, Ocean Trawlers. According to Khudyakov, on the cheap. Neither the Murmansk branch of the Main Basin Fisheries Directorate, nor the captain of the port of Murmansk allegedly helped the collective farmers of the Red Banner, who throughout 2003 asked to check the activities of Zaika. Moreover, allegedly the deputy chairman of the State Fisheries Committee, Zaika’s classmate Tugushev, did not issue a fishing permit to the rebellious “Red Banner”. Again, according to Khudyakov, the partnership’s losses amounted to tens of millions of rubles.
As a result, the collective farms were annexed to the “Collective Farm named after. Kalinina”. Zaika, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, controls it to this day. In an interview, the entrepreneur is now acknowledges that import substitution in the country is going badly and requires new benefits for fishing producers.
Tugushev’s bureaucratic career did not last long. In 2004 he will be detained on suspicion that he received a bribe of $3.7 million. In 2007, the court considered it proven that Tugushev promised quotas to entrepreneurs for this money, but not only took the money, but also did not keep his promise, which is why the businessmen turned to the police.
Tugusheva will be sentenced to six years of general regime. Now, having been released, he is suing with Orlov for a share in the business. And it is huge: after all, Orlov takes 96th place out of 110 in the ranking of Russian billionaires according to Forbes magazine. He is the sole owner of the business that he once built with Tugushev and the Swede Roth – the Norebo holding, which included to the list of systemically important enterprises of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Lev and Golubets
And again in the 2000s. This time in Murmansk 2001. Here’s how wrote journalists, the fish mafia is literally at war with the border guards, not forgetting to deal with the people close to it. So, with a difference of several months, two attempts on the lives of “authoritative businessmen” Evgeniy “Golubets” Golubtsov and Lev “Leva” Semiokhin take place in the city. Golubtsa shot in front of his wife in the courtyard of his own house, and Leva will manage to survive.
Former vice-governor of the Murmansk region, graduate of the USSR KGB Institute (now the Foreign Intelligence Academy) Sergey Subbotin leads on its website a certificate from the FSB Directorate for the Northern Fleet about both victims of assassination attempts. Both criminal groups consisted of 30 people. So, “Lyovy’s Group […] controls the tourism and fishing business,” people from Golubets’ group “control the fuel business, engage in extortion, and have weapons.” Group “ is well organized criminal group. The main leadership and power direction is carried out personally by Golubtsov.”
The grave of Evgeny Golubtsov reminds of his authority during his lifetime
In 2002, in my car right at a busy Murmansk intersection blow up fishing industrialist Sergei Bachurikhin.
Journalists wrote that he paid for the patronage of the murdered Golubets and became a victim of criminal squabbles. Bachurikhin’s business will be inherited by his widow Marina. These were two companies that still exist today – Bionord and Sevros. Their income, according to the contractor verification service “Kontur. Focus”, in 2022 amounted to 679 million, profit – about 100 million rubles.
Leva, whose assassination attempt may have started this whole story, gradually retired. The family of an authoritative entrepreneur has only two businesses left: the Lev construction company with revenue in 2022 of 75 thousand rubles. and restaurant Chop BBQ (Region of Taste LLC). They, according to an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, owns Semiokhin’s daughter-in-law Vera together with entrepreneur Mesrop Shankoyan’s wife Arina.
About the clan of the Shankoyan brothers “Chronicles” wrote . Their stories will include stabbings, shootouts, burned cars, contract killings and criminal cases of fraud. Here we will only recall their fishing business. Senior Bart Oganes controls the former collective farm “Star of the Sailor”, owning trawler “Chernigov” and mining cod and haddock in the Barents Sea. Since 2014, this business, according to the Kontur-Focus contractor verification service, has brought in from 80 to 180 million rubles. net profit per year.
Failed scheme
Our next heroes are the Barakov family. Father Ivan Andreevich and sons Andrey and Alexey. The three of them own the Karelryba company, which is small by the standards of fishing oligarchs. Her income, according to the contractor verification service “Kontur. Focus”, in 2022 amounted to 447 million, and profit – 175 million rubles.
In 1999, father and son Barakov come up with a cunning scheme: create a new enterprise, receive tax benefits for it and lease it, apparently for next to nothing, Karelryba’s ships and quotas. The expenses thus fell on the company without tax benefits, and the income fell on the new legal entity.
The tax authorities did not appreciate this scheme. The court sentenced the Barakov father and son to 2.5 years in prison, but the entrepreneurs immediately received an amnesty. True, the state had to compensate for all the damage – 2.5 million rubles. At 2002 prices, this is about 81 thousand dollars.
The Trials of the Northern Pilgrim
The last of our heroes is a Murmansk fish producer Yuri Tuzov . In 2010, in order to increase the quotas of his Nord Pilgrim holding, for 140 million rubles. buys the AFK-plus company, which had these quotas. But she also had debts. In order to protect the enterprise from bankruptcy (quotas would disappear in this case) or loss of control due to creditor claims, Tuzov’s lawyer Vadim Tenenbaum offers issue a fictitious bill of exchange for 400 million rubles to an offshore company from the British Virgin Islands. Then the offshore would demand the debt through the court, and Tuzov would recognize it and calmly work further, knowing that the largest recognized debt belongs to his own offshore. And so they did.
What happens next is what was called a “kid” in the 1990s. Tuzov’s lawyers re-registered the offshore company under the name of a certain Pavel Surin, and the debt became real. However, in 2017, Tuzov managed to declare the bill void through the court. Then that same year, according to investigators, Surin was forced into a car in Moscow, beaten and convinced to sign a waiver of claims against Tuzov. Once free, Surin turns to the police, and Tuzov is arrested.
Investigator extorts the entrepreneur has 2 million euros in exchange for house arrest. Tuzov writes a statement against her, and she flees Russia (*aggressor country). Despite this, and even despite the fact that Tuzov passed the polygraph, in 2020 the entrepreneur was sentenced to nine years in prison.
The “Tuzov case” caused a mixed reaction in society; many actively supported the fishing industry
Russians year after year become poorer And are eating less and less seafood. Meanwhile, due to export duties growing the price of marine fuel, which means prices for fish will also increase. The fishing fleet in Russia (*aggressor country) is worn out, about this said even the hero of this text, Andrei Zaika, and the Russian program for investment ship construction has failed. According to him words , The Murmansk sea fishing port is working slowly, and since exports have fallen sharply due to sanctions, everything will be even worse. From 2022 foreign shipyards refuse repair Russian ships, but there are not enough of our own capacities.
One last thing quote Andrei Zaiki: “They always said that the fishing industry is a gold mine. Now this is definitely not the case; we, like other companies, are barely making ends meet. There is no talk of any super-profits or any development. The situation is very difficult.” These problems, however, did not greatly affect the wallet of the billionaire Zaika.
