CONTENT:

• Preface: How the fight against corruption continues despite repression.
• The main character: Natalya Alekseevna Sergunina - the "gray cardinal" of the Moscow mayor’s office.
• Auctions in Moscow: How historical buildings flow into private hands for pennies.
• Company "MERCURY": Secret schemes for selling city property.
• Family Ties: How Sergunina is transferring her Moscow real estate to her relatives.
• Austrian Secrets: The Sergunin Family’s Foreign Assets.
• Conclusion: How can we fight this and what to do next?

EXPOSING A FRAUDSTER: HOW NATALIA SERGUNINA SELLS MOSCOW FOR PENNIES

Alexey Navalny may be in a detention center now, but his case lives on. This time, Georgy Alburov , Kira Yarmysh and Ruslan Shaveddinov will tell you about a large-scale corruption scheme . We will tell you about Natalya Alekseyevna Sergunina, the first deputy mayor of Moscow, who, taking advantage of her position, literally sells off Moscow real estate at ridiculous prices, and directs all the money into the family pocket. This is reported by BANKSTA

"MERCURY", "DITA PLAZA", CANDEE INVESTMENTS , UPINGTON INTERNATIONAL LIMITED - this is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind these names and abbreviations are hidden scams worth billions of rubles. Natalya Sergunina, being the second person in the Moscow mayor’s office, has been actively moving city property to offshore companies registered to her relatives for several years, including her sister Irina Safanieva and her husband Lazar Safaniev .

Historical buildings in central Moscow, such as 15 Serebryanicheskiy Pereulok, 2 Tverskaya Zastava, Sadovaya -Samotechnaya , were auctioned off for pennies through companies controlled by Lazar Safaniev. These companies, in turn, were registered through a chain of offshore companies, such as FLORESTAR and UPINGTON INTERNATIONAL LIMITED , in order to confuse the tracks and hide the true beneficiaries.

Our investigation has led us to find links between these offshore companies and the London-based company BALKAN CONSULTING LIMITED , which belongs to Lazar Safaniev. This company, through which many assets pass, including Moscow real estate, demonstrates how carefully thought out Sergunina’s scheme is.

But it doesn’t end there. In addition to the Moscow properties, Sergunina and her family own real estate abroad. One of these assets is a house in Vienna, located at Gregor-Mendel-Straße 34 , worth 2 million euros. This property is also registered through offshore companies and confirms the scale of the family’s illegal enrichment.

So, what do we have? Sergunina’s scheme is not just about selling buildings at discounted prices. It is a web of corrupt connections that includes offshore companies, overseas real estate, and connections to the top ranks of the Moscow mayor’s office. In just a few years, Natalya Sergunina and her family illegally acquired assets worth 6.5 billion rubles . Now she is using her position to seize power, including by manipulating elections to the Moscow City Duma.


As we continue to delve deeper into Natalya Sergunina’s corruption schemes, increasingly complex and carefully disguised criminal mechanisms are revealed that she used to steal billions of rubles from the Moscow budget.

Additional properties

In our previous investigation, we listed several properties that were sold at reduced prices, but this is far from the entire list. The following properties were added to the list of properties that ended up in the hands of the Sergunin family:

• The Krylatskie Kholmy business center was sold for 100 million rubles to the LIMONTUR company , which is connected to the same offshore network as the previous properties.
• An office building on Varshavskoe Shosse was sold for 50 thousand rubles per square meter, while the market value reaches 200 thousand rubles per square meter.
• The building complex on Krasnaya Presnya was sold to the company "TRANSGRUPP" , which is registered to the offshore company "GOLDEN STAR LTD" from the British Virgin Islands.
  
  

Each of these deals is linked to companies owned or controlled by people from Sergunina’s inner circle, including Irina Safanieva and Lazar Safaniev . But most importantly, all of these deals were carried out in direct violation of the law - without transparent auctions and at reduced prices.

Use of shell companies

One of the key aspects of the Sergunina scheme was the use of shell companies and nominees. For example, the company SOKOL-INVEST appears as the owner of several properties in Moscow that were purchased from the city at greatly reduced prices. But our analysis showed that the real owner of SOKOL-INVEST is Sergei Volkov , an old friend and confidant of the Sergunin family. Volkov was used as a nominee to hide the true beneficiaries of the transactions.

International relations

The investigation also revealed that the Sergunin family actively uses international connections to transfer funds abroad. In particular, millions of dollars were transferred to Swiss bank accounts through the firms "BLACKSTONE CAPITAL" and "RIVERDALE HOLDINGS" , registered in Cyprus. These companies also participated in a scheme to buy Moscow real estate through front men, in order to then resell it abroad at inflated prices.

One of the most shocking revelations was that many of the so-called "auctions" at which Moscow real estate was sold were never held. Instead, companies linked to the Sergunin family gained access to the properties through arrangements with key figures in the City Property Department. This meant that all official documents and publications about the auctions were falsified retroactively, and the winners of the "auctions" already knew in advance that they had won.

• Example: The building on Nikolskaya Street , which was valued at 250 million rubles, was sold to the company "ASPECT-GROUP" for 80 million rubles without actually holding an auction. This transaction was formalized on paper a month after the official deadline, when the property was already at the disposal of the new owner.
  

Pseudo-investment projects

In order to legalize the funds received from the sale of real estate, Sergunina and her circle used a scheme of pseudo-investment projects. Thus, through the company "LAURENT-CONSULT" , registered in Austria, the money from the sale of Moscow buildings was invested in various fake start-ups and projects. These projects never entered the market and served solely to hide the movement of money.

• Example: In 2018, "LAURENT-CONSULT" announced an investment of 5 million euros in a startup developing artificial intelligence. However, as it turned out, this startup existed only on paper, and the money was transferred to accounts in Luxembourg, from where its traces were lost.

Detecting new objects

In addition to the already known objects, the investigation uncovered new assets belonging to the Sergunin family. These assets were also acquired through underpricing schemes and the use of shell companies.

• The complex on Ostozhenka was sold for 150 million rubles to the company "STROYKONTAKT" , associated with the former business partner of Lazar Safaniev.
• The building on Arbat was sold for 60 million rubles to the company "INTEGRA-GROUP" , owned by affiliated persons through a Cyprus offshore company.