The criminal case against former members of the group “Finmarket Chernozemye” appeared only after publication in “MY!”, although they had been operating for several years. One of them, Rustam Nazari, was imprisoned. Now they are dealing with Dmitry Naumovsky.
The hearing in the case of Dmitry Naumovsky took place on April 24 in the Leninsky Court. He sat thin and gloomy. His dear – I mean, not cheap – lawyer Sergei Muravyov read a speech for half an hour about some “mistakes of the investigation and the prosecutor’s office” and asked to return the case to the prosecutor. The prosecutor even asked for a break to read the defense Talmud more carefully. Judge Marina Siukhina postponed the hearing until May 8, so that the state prosecutor will have something to do during the holidays. Six victims—the first batch of 27 officially recognized in the case—did not get their turn to speak.
“We only managed to say that we will not allow the process to be delayed.” And if Naumovsky takes the tactic of “being sick and not showing up”, we will ask to send him to a pre-trial detention center! – people from the courtroom tell me. – Instead of another victim – a woman from Moscow! – was her representative. And he so competently laid everything out in response to the petition of lawyer Naumovsky… He became silent.
And some died
27 victims – perhaps not even a quarter of those who became victims of one of the largest financial scams not only in the history of Voronezh, but, perhaps, the country. Investigators managed to find more than a hundred people – and people are now sincerely grateful to them for their titanic work. But if all the stories were filed with the case file, it could get bogged down and not get to court at all. The total preliminary damage, as I was told at the regional headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is 63.5 million rubles.
According to the final version of the investigation, the scam ran from 2014 to 2018. And it was we who exposed the group. My first journalistic investigation, tentatively titled “Evictors,” was published in September 2019. People told how, having found themselves at the end of the line (illness, problems with work), they came to a certain office of Finmarket Chernozemye LLC, where they were promised a microloan. The agreement was concluded not with a legal entity, but personally with its director Dmitry Naumovsky (most often), or with another employee. The person left his only home as collateral. Why? And they slipped him a piece of paper about “buy back” for his signature: they say, pay up and get (“buy back”) your apartment “back”. But this, of course, was obviously a hoax. The interest rates were outrageous, the victim accumulated crazy debts, good “creditors” with a clear conscience came to court with a claim “to foreclose on the pledged property.” And they won honestly: all within the framework of a voluntary agreement. The person became homeless.
Even then, the number of victims was in the tens of dozens; I explained every link in the fraudulent scheme on my fingers. But the police stubbornly refused to file a criminal case with the message “you are fools, you saw what you were signing up for.” What these people went through is terrible. For some, a nervous breakdown led to serious illness. One of the women – the heroine of my material – could not survive the disease. But people didn’t give up. A handful of the most active ones made it to Moscow: to the State Duma and the federal headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They brought the newspaper “MINE!” They were shaking with a heap of documents from Rosreestr, according to which dozens of real estate properties were registered in the name of comrades from Finmarket Chernozemye. And already in December 2019 – bingo: the first winning line was taken. In the investigative unit for the investigation of organized criminal activities of the Main Investigation Department (GID) of the Voronezh Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a criminal case is being initiated under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Fraud committed by an organized group or on a particularly large scale or resulting in the deprivation of a citizen’s right to residential premises” – up to 10 years in prison. For several years people fought the system, and then, after an article in the newspaper, the police suddenly “understands.” Coincidentally, the next day, President Vladimir Putin dismissed Major General of Justice Vyacheslav Vorontsov, who had headed the Main Directorate of the Voronezh Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for almost five and a half years. Former clients of Finmarket Chernozemye LLC visited the threshold of his office and reception room in the regional government more often than other important thresholds: it was on the will of General Vorontsov that their fates depended – whether he would give the go-ahead to local investigators for a criminal case.
“We will do everything to put him in prison”
After my first text to the editor “MY!” those “patrons” from “Finmarket Chernozemye” came. They were terribly indignant and threatened to “sue”.
When the investigation was just gaining momentum – at the end of 2020 – in “MY!” Five more episodes of my journalistic investigation about the “evictions” have been released.
On March 6, 2023, Judge Marina Galagan of the Leninsky Court of Voronezh found one of the “philanthropists”, Rustam Abdulzakhirovich Nazari, guilty of fraud. Three years in prison with a fine of 300 thousand rubles. Nazari admitted his guilt, made a deal with the investigation, returned the money to the deceived people – that’s why he got off lightly. I did not appeal.
Dmitry Naumovsky, in addition to 27 episodes of fraud and attempted fraud, has two more articles in the charge: laundering property acquired by criminal means on a large scale and by a group of persons by prior conspiracy (174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as falsification of financial accounting documents and reporting of a financial organization by a group of persons by prior conspiracy (172.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The third ex-employee of Finmarket Chernozemye did not come under investigation. He initially kept a low profile. But for a long time he was the founder of another office, which was located in the center of Voronezh. Among its registered activities was “providing loans and other types of credit.” According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the office was liquidated at the end of March 2024.
Former clients of Finmarket Chernozemye, having learned this news from me, exhaled: “Finally. I can’t believe it.” And they repeated the phrase that I had already heard from them three and a half years ago: “We will get to the end so that Naumovsky can be imprisoned. We have nothing to lose.” And this is so: he did not return to the people their only housing, not a penny of money. Only two women managed to get those fake loan agreements with “buyback” invalidated in court: they won back their apartments. If now Dmitry Borisovich Naumovsky is found guilty, there will be a chance to try to get something out of him in a civil manner. Just where, if anything, he will get 63.5 million is the question.
