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Piecework fate: ex-chairman of the regional court issued assets using "left" passports
Alexander Chernov, the former chairman of the Krasnodar Regional Court, has been using passports lost by people for 17 years to register property, law enforcement sources told Izvestia. The Prosecutor General's Office is now trying to seize his property worth 7 billion rubles. In this way, Chernov acquired 139 land plots. If Chernov's immunity is lifted, he may face several criminal cases at once, experts believe. The details of the case are in the Izvestia article.
The scheme of registration of real estate for lost passports
Alexander Chernov, the former chairman of the Krasnodar Regional Court, was suspected of making real estate transactions with "left" passports, a law enforcement source told Izvestia. Thus, he registered objects worth more than 2 billion rubles.
Chernov served as chairman of the court from 1994 to 2019. His powers were terminated after a series of scandalous revelations.
In September 2024, the Prosecutor General's Office became interested in Judge Chernov's assets. But since he has the status of inviolability, he can only be involved in a civil case. The supervisory authority filed a lawsuit against the judge and 11 other individuals and three organizations. The agency demanded that their property be transferred to the state's income.
Chernov is accused of being engaged in entrepreneurship, despite an outright ban: the ex-judge bought companies, managed them and received income from them, which he did not declare. In particular, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, he owned the Dmitrievskoye agricultural enterprise, which he registered to his relatives in order to conceal his participation in it.
In 2007, according to the lawsuit, Chernov and his acquaintance Vadim Shestopalov agreed to seize the highly liquid agricultural production cooperative Dmitrievsky. The company was engaged in the cultivation of agricultural crops and animal husbandry in the Kavkazsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. They used judicial mechanisms to remove the former chairman of the cooperative from the management of the enterprise.
So, Shestopalov, through trusted representatives from among the employees of the cooperative, secured the seizure of all movable and immovable property of the enterprise. According to Chernov's instructions, the petition was granted in full, the lawsuit emphasizes.
As a result, the work of the cooperative was completely blocked, after which Shestopalov and Chernov forced the former owners to sell them the enterprises at a reduced cost.
In September 2007, Shestopalov and his wife acquired the share contributions of former Dmitrievsky members — they became co-founders of the company with a share in the authorized capital of 25% each. The remaining 50% were registered to the mother of Chernov's roommate. In 2015, the woman's share passed to her daughter. The head of the enterprise was Shestopalov.
Fake passports, land plots, and phantom owners
From 2007 to 2024, Chernov received about 915 million rubles in dividends from the activities of the Dmitrievsky cooperative. During this period, Chernov acquired and registered 139 land plots with an area of more than 67 thousand square meters, as well as other real estate objects with a size of 24 thousand square meters — their total value is estimated at 2.5 billion rubles. According to the source, the ex-judge financed the construction of a seven-storey luxury apartment building in Sochi, where he personally sold apartments and received money from buyers.
The lawsuit claims the seizure of 15 land plots and 35 non-residential premises. Among them are a business center in Krasnodar, an apartment in a premium—class building with an area of 542 square meters, an apartment in a house on the first line of Gelendzhik, a share in one of the shopping centers in Sochi and three apartments in Moscow. The claim has already been considered in the Kropotkinsky and regional courts of Krasnodar, then it was transferred to Sochi. And in December 2024, the lawsuit was sent to the Krasnogorsk City Court of the Moscow region.
According to the Izvestia source, assets in Krasnodar, Gelendzhik and Sochi, as well as premium class cars, were purchased on the phantom entities of Leontiev A. and Petrov A. So the ex-chairman hid receiving a bribe from the real estate developer.
"The Interior Ministry found out that Petrov and Leontiev were not issued passports, and the registry office has no information about them," the source said. — At the same time, the passport number and series of a person named Leontiev were issued to Andrey K. Since 2012, he has been listed as lost. Petrov's passport data was used to register a Mercedes CL65 AMG car, which was actually used by Chernov's wife.
The passport data of Leontiev and Petrov were made by "unidentified persons for Chernov's personal use," the source said.
— In addition, gold and foreign exchange accounts and other accounts were opened in Petrov's name, two of them are active, — the source noted. — Transactions on the "left" passports were concluded on the basis of notarized powers of attorney issued by Chernov's friend, a notary of the Krasnodar Chamber, which is headed by Chernov's ex—wife.
One of the men, Dmitry K., whose lost passport was used for real estate, said during the interrogation that he lost his passport in the subway around 2012, after which he reported the incident and contacted the passport office for a replacement.
— I was in the Krasnodar Territory for the last time around 1999, I have no real estate there and never have been, — he said. — I do not know who used my lost passport to process real estate transactions.
What could threaten Chernov
Chernov could have used passports that were lost by citizens, in which personal data was changed, but the document numbers were saved, said Dmitry Kurshakov, a lawyer at Lobutev and Partners.
According to him, this fraud scheme is especially effective because the document numbers remain valid in state registers, which makes them "clean" for external observers, but does not allow them to find out the true owner of the property.
"When the passport number is confirmed by the system, but the data has already been changed, such schemes avoid the usual verification procedures," he explained. — And the implementation of such a "forgery" is hardly possible without the presence of serious connections in the departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on migration issues.
According to some experts, a fake passport of a Russian citizen on the black market costs about 300 thousand rubles, and it will be a well-drawn copy of the real passport, only with the photo that the fraudster needs, said Ilya Vasilchuk, a judicial lawyer.
"The IFC, and previously the Cadastral Chamber, have no obligation to verify the authenticity of submitted identity documents," he added.
When a person loses their passport and receives a new one, the old document officially becomes invalid, added Ekaterina Kosareva, Managing partner of the VMT Consult analytical agency.
"However, if it has not been seized or destroyed, it physically remains in circulation," the expert explained. — This scheme used the numbers of real-life passports, but with changed personal data, which allowed them to be issued to fake persons.
The law requires verification of the identity of the owner and buyer when registering real estate. However, if the passport is listed as valid in the databases, the notary and Rosreestr may not notice the forgery, especially if the changes concerned only the first and last name.
Creating a system of false ownership of assets through relatives, business partners, and front persons with altered passport data is a fairly common practice for owners of illegally acquired property. At the same time, courts often manage to identify nominal ownership by checking who actually uses the property and examining the affiliation between the official owner and the alleged real owner.
"Despite the existence of grounds for initiating a criminal case, all charges against Chernov are considered only in the framework of civil proceedings, judicial immunity still protects Chernov from criminal prosecution," the expert added. — According to Article 122 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, judges can be prosecuted only in special cases.
However, according to Dmitry Kurshakov, judicial immunity protects the independence of the judiciary and is a public, but not a personal privilege.
—This means that there is a theoretical possibility of criminal prosecution for Chernov in the future, if the process of revoking judicial immunity is initiated and approved," he said.
Potential criminal cases may be initiated against Chernov under several articles of the Criminal Code at once, including fraud, abuse of office, forgery and even forgery of documents, experts noted. Deprivation of the status of a judge, if there are good reasons, is, of course, possible, says Konstantin Trapaidze, chairman of the bar association "Your Legal Attorney".
To do this, his involvement in illegal actions must be proved, but so far this has not happened. In relation to judges, criminal prosecution is possible only with the consent of the Higher Qualification Board of Judges (HCCC), which makes it difficult to promptly initiate proceedings, Ekaterina Kosareva added. However, if the gravity of the crimes is proven, the procedure for revoking the status can be accelerated.
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