I got online: blogger Mitroshina is facing three years due to the purchase of luxury apartments

On June 17, the Tverskoy District Court held a debate on the case of blogger Alexandra Mitroshina, known online as the "Mother of Lies." The prosecutor, who demanded that she be sentenced to three years in a penal colony and 115 million rubles confiscated, is confident that the defendant's guilt in money laundering has been fully proven. According to investigators, Mitroshina illegally applied a simplified taxation system and split income between controlled sole proprietors. The funds received in this way, investigators believe, were used to buy two luxury apartments, one of which is located a kilometer from the Kremlin. The defense, on the contrary, asks the court to fully acquit Mitroshina.

How Tax Evasion Turned into Money Laundering

Alexandra Mitroshina came to court in the company of friends and seven of her subscribers, whom the defense asked to interrogate as witnesses after the start of the meeting. In their opinion, the new defendants could confirm Mitroshina's innocence, tell them that the blogger openly and in detail described the purchase of apartments in her channel, and also give her a positive description.

Somewhat puzzled by such a motion, the prosecutor immediately noticed that the testimony would be extremely subjective, and the court agreed with her, rejecting the defense.

The state prosecutor requested three years in a penal colony for Mitroshina, a fine of 900 thousand rubles and the confiscation of 115 million rubles in favor of the state. According to the prosecution, this is exactly the amount the blogger legalized. The prosecutor's office explained the relatively short period of time by the defendant's cooperation with the investigation and her charitable activities.

Mitroshina's defense asked the client to acquit. Thus, lawyer Mikhail Mushailov pointed out in his speech that the defendant had sold both apartments involved in the case, and spent the money on paying off loans that she had to take out to pay off the tax.

Lawyer Mikhail Yusupov assured the court that his client's activities did not fall under the article on legalization at all, since they were completely transparent — Mitroshina shared everything on her blog with 2.4 million subscribers. And the apartments were purchased for personal purposes. According to the lawyer, the accused did not even realize that her actions could be interpreted as business fragmentation and tax evasion: she considered the current scheme to be a distribution of profits between partners who owned sole proprietors.

In her last words, Alexandra Mitroshina recalled that she had paid off the debt owed to the Federal Tax Service immediately after she learned about the arrears. She also noted that she has been under house arrest for 14 months and has not been working, which is why the budget does not receive tax deductions.

A few minutes after the debate ended, the judge announced that he would announce the verdict on June 18.

Rise and fall

Mitroshina began gaining popularity in 2011, when she started a blog on Instagram (owned by Meta, a company whose activities are recognized as extremist and banned in Russia). There she published materials about fitness and a healthy lifestyle. In 2017, the blogger launched the Instalogy course, dedicated to social media promotion.

According to her, the main income was not from the blog, but from the sale of educational programs. Now she has about 2.4 million subscribers, and the cost of advertising placement, according to market participants, reaches 1 million rubles.

The criminal case against Mitroshina was initiated by the Investigative Committee in March 2023. The investigation believes that from October 2020 to May 2022, the blogger evaded paying taxes in the amount of 127 million rubles by splitting up the business through a network of fictitious sole proprietors, while her income exceeded the established limit.

Immediately after the initiation of the case, Mitroshina paid off most of the debt owed to the Federal Tax Service, and paid the remaining 9 million rubles in May of the same year. After that, the criminal case was dismissed.

However, in March 2025, the blogger was detained in Sochi and charged with legalizing funds received as a result of non-payment of taxes. According to law enforcement agencies, the blogger bought two luxury apartments for this purpose — on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment and in the Bolshaya Dmitrovka IX residential complex near the Kremlin.

Mitroshina pleaded partially guilty, admitting that the money for the purchase of real estate could have been obtained through "tax optimization." However, she did not agree with the interpretation of her actions, claiming that there was no criminal intent in them and insisting that she did not hide the fact of the purchase of housing, which she told subscribers about.

What threatens a blogger

Compensation for damage caused to the budget, as well as active cooperation with the investigation, will be taken into account by the court as mitigating circumstances, lawyer of the Minushkina and Partners Bar Association Aram Muradov told Izvestia.

"On the other hand, the lack of a full admission of guilt can play a cruel joke," the expert noted. — Voluntary compensation for damages indicates acceptance of the fact of arrears, but does not mean recognition of criminal intent. That is why, in relation to Mitroshina, a relatively mild measure of restraint was chosen — house arrest.

According to Muradov, the defense has the right to expect an acquittal or at least a minimum sentence, up to a suspended sentence. However, the practice in such cases is not in favor of the accused: courts often impose real terms of imprisonment, and acquittals are extremely rare.

According to lawyer Dmitry Kravchenko from the law firm Asnis and Partners, the article on legalization, which Mitroshina is accused of, is a big problem of Russian law enforcement.

The expert noted that ordinary property transactions cannot be considered legalization if they are not aimed at concealing illegal income. He stressed that the purchase of real estate, stocks, currency or other assets by itself does not constitute such a crime. However, practice shows that such cases often develop according to an unfavorable scenario for the accused.