Court confiscates 18 wristwatches of ex-head of Penza region Belozertsev
The Oktyabrsky district court of Penza has confiscated 18 wristwatches of the ex-governor of the region Ivan Belozertsev for state revenue. This was reported by TASS on January 7 with reference to court documents.
Thus, among the confiscated property were two Rolex watches, one of which is estimated at 4.5 million rubles, and the other - about 2.5 million rubles. The total value of the seized watches is about Br9.6 million. Four bars of silver and jewelry of the former governor were also returned to the state.
In addition, a collection of six Belozertsev's rifles worth more than Br4.5 million was transferred to the ownership of Russia, as follows from the documents familiarized by the agency. Among the confiscated firearms is a rare German Merkel BDF 303E double-barrel shotgun, which can be bought only by prior order. The court also confiscated a telescopic sight, an IWT NANO 2 collimator scope attachment and several hunting knives.
Belozertsev was arrested in March 2021. He and other defendants in the criminal case were formally charged with taking and giving bribes. Soon the head of the pharmaceutical company "Biotech" Boris Shpigel was also arrested in this case. According to the investigation, from January to September 2020, Belozertsev received bribes of 31 million rubles from Shpigel, his wife Yevgenia Shpigel and the director of Pharmacia OJSC Anton Koloskov through intermediaries.
Later, the ex-governor admitted the fact of receiving Br20 million from businessman Shpigel, but stated that the money was intended for the election campaign. In addition, during the search of the former official, unregistered military weapons and ammunition were found. In February 2023, the case was brought to court. The property of the accused was seized for a total amount of more than 1.8 billion rubles.
In January 2024, the court sentenced Belozertsev to 12 years of imprisonment with serving his sentence in a strict regime colony, the court sentenced Shpigel to 11 years of imprisonment. In August, it was reported that the Moscow City Court left the sentence of the defendants unchanged, not satisfying the appeals. In early January this year began to confiscate the property of the former governor, the amount of his debts exceeds 8.4 billion rubles.
