As a former vice governor, he became involved in the scheme of the Ural oligarchs. The case of Oleg Chemezov

On October 10, the court fully satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation on the nationalization of the enterprises of two Ural oligarchs. In addition to them, Oleg Chemezov, the former vice-governor of the Sverdlovsk region, was among the defendants in the case, who was arrested on charges of fraud on an especially large scale. A high-profile corruption case concerns the monopolization of the utility market in five regions of the country. What is known about the Chemezov case is in the Izvestia article.

Arrest of the Vice Governor

• On September 25, by decree of the new head of the Sverdlovsk Region, Denis Pasler, Oleg Chemezov, who served as the first vice-governor of the region since 2021, was removed from office, and four days later the former official was detained on suspicion of fraud on a particularly large scale. The court chose a preventive measure for him in the form of arrest until November 15. At the same time, the accounts of Chemezov and his family were arrested in the case of the seizure of assets of businessmen Alexei Bobrov and Artem Bikov back on September 12.

• Oleg Chemezov pleads not guilty. According to the charges, he could face up to 10 years in prison. Chemezov's property, which, according to the prosecutor's office, could have been obtained through corruption, was seized. The property of his wife Irina Chemezova, who is a defendant in another case, was also seized.

Implicated property: assets worth 500 million were seized from Oleg Chemezov's family.

Izvestia also found information about a villa in Montenegro, which is registered to the ex-wife of an ex-official.

Communal monopoly

• The key role in the case is played by the Sverdlovsk company Oblkommunenergo, which was transferred to private hands with violations. According to the lawsuit, the company's managers and trustees, as well as regional officials, received illegal income from the transfer of assets to other persons and offshore companies. The prosecutor's office demanded to impose interim measures on the defendants' property, as the reorganization of enterprises and the withdrawal of funds abroad continued, and the defendants in the case had the citizenship of Austria, Italy, Great Britain, Romania and Israel.

• Initially operating in the field of electricity transmission and grid connection, Oblkommunenergo received many heat generation and water supply assets from other enterprises in 2011, and in 2015 it was privatized and transformed into a public joint stock company.: Bobrov and Bikov received 75% of the shares, and the blocking stake (25%) went to the government of the Sverdlovsk region.

• The assets obtained formed the basis of the municipal holding company CTC Corporation, owned by Bobrov and Bikov, as they allowed businessmen to buy up resource-supplying enterprises in other regions. The Prosecutor General's Office believes that the privatization took place with violations: a year later, the regional office tried to challenge this decision in court, but was unsuccessful. The CTC Corporation claims that the privatization procedure was conducted in accordance with the law.

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• According to the lawsuit, the holding monopolized "the generation and supply of electricity, water supply, and solid municipal waste management" in five regions — the Kurgan, Sverdlovsk, and Tyumen regions, and the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Districts. Using their connections with officials, the oligarchs lobbied for their interests in setting tariffs and forming concessions. The oligarchs transferred the proceeds from the sale of communal resources through the Agropromcredit controlled bank to accounts in Austria and Switzerland and used these funds to purchase hotel complexes in Montenegro and Austria.

• Nikolai Smirnov, the former Minister of Housing and Communal Services of the Sverdlovsk region, who was previously detained for bribery and cooperating with the investigation, could have testified against Chemezov. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, after Smirnov's arrest, it was Chemezov who oversaw the work with Bobrov and Bikov's structures, ensured the coordination of favorable tariffs for them, for which he, his relatives and trusted persons were given preferences. In particular, according to the SOE, Chemezov's wife Irina received highly liquid real estate in the Sysertsky district at a nominal price.

The seized property of the Chemezovs

• The court seized the property of the former official and his family in the amount of about 500 million rubles. Irina Chemezova's car fleet, an Audi A8L, two Mercedes GLS 400D and a 4MATIC, was arrested. The cost of cars on the secondary market is estimated at about 25-30 million rubles.

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• Chemezova's Moscow real estate was seized — an elite apartment in the Ramenka district on Lomonosovsky Prospekt with an area of 226 square meters (market value of about 200 million rubles) and non-residential premises of 20 square meters. m on Nikulinskaya street (about 1.5 million rubles). An apartment in the center of Yekaterinburg on Sacco and Vanzetti Streets with an area of 257 square meters (about 20 million) was also arrested. According to Oleg Chemezov's declaration for 2021, this apartment was in his possession.

• The assets of the Chemezov family in Tyumen were also subject to restrictive measures. Office building with an area of 1,500 sq. m. m in the village of Dudareva in Akademicheskiy Proezd (about 120 million rubles) and the house of the brother of former vice-governor Maxim Chemezov in the same area on Mirnaya Street (about 20 million). After the court's decision on the nationalization of the companies, the seizure of the Chemezovs' property can be lifted within a month.

Arrests

• The prosecutor's office demanded that several dozen companies be seized for state revenue, including CTC Corporation and its constituent JSC Oblkommunenergo. 99 companies and 63 people are currently being held as defendants and third parties in the case, including Bobrov and Bikov, their relatives and partners, as well as Oleg Chemezov, former vice-governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, and Alexei Pyankov, former head of the regional Ministry of State Property Management (detained in 2016 in a case of bribery and embezzlement)., and the former Minister of Housing and Communal Services of the region Nikolai Smirnov (detained for bribery in January 2025).

• Businessman Alexey Bobrov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CTC Corporation Tatiana Chernykh, as well as Acting CEO of United Heat Supply Company (JSC OTSK), which is a subsidiary of Oblkommunenergo, Artyom Noskov and former head of OTSK Anton Bolikov were arrested on suspicion of fraud. The court later released Noskov, while Bolikov remained in custody. Dmitry Budanov, the head of Oblkommunenergo, is wanted. Artyom Bikov is being investigated as a defendant. It is known that since 2007, he, like Bobrov, had Austrian citizenship and permanently resided in this country.