Your fines are our car. How in Voronezh material evidence became personal use before the trial ended

Voronezh. 04/25/2024. ABIREG.RU – The BMW 7 car has become evidence in a high-profile criminal case and must either be parked in a special parking lot until the end of the trial, or be kept in safe custody. Instead, he freely travels along the roads of Voronezh, Lipetsk, Tula, collecting fines. “Abireg” found out how Voronezh investigators could allow this to happen.

The BMW 7 car is registered to Voronezh businessman Alexander Shishkanov. Miroslav Protsenko, with whom Alexander had had friendly and business relations for several years, decided to challenge the ownership of it. Shishkanov’s car was seized, and for some time the car was parked in a special parking lot. However, in August last year, Shishkanov began receiving notifications about fines for his car, and was surprised to learn the geography of its movements. Investigator Olga Chebotareva, who is leading the case, does not seem to attach much importance to these circumstances.

Let us remind you that the story began in the summer of 2021. Alexander Shishkanov bought a BMW on a car loan through Toyota Bank for 6.2 million rubles as a gift to his wife for the birth of his daughter. All documents were issued in Shishkanov’s name, he regularly made payments on the loan, and his family used the car for more than six months.

According to the entrepreneur, the conflict began in November of the same year. According to him, Miroslav Protsenko asked to give him the title for the BMW 7 car and allegedly sign a blank form of the purchase and sale agreement. The reason was that six years ago Miroslav gave Shishkanov 1.2 million rubles in circulation and received his percentage from it. Allegedly, during all this time, Shishkanov never gave a deposit for this amount, and it was now that Protsenko began to worry about this circumstance. Shishkanov agreed and signed everything, trusting his friend as himself.

According to him, in the spring of 2022, Protsenko suddenly asked to return the money with interest and announced the amount of 4 million rubles. Alexander Shishkanov refused, and then Protsenko and his mother wrote a statement about fraud to the Ramon police department. By that time, by the way, cars had risen sharply in price: a BMW 7 began to cost more than 10 million rubles. In Protsenko’s statement, they wrote that they allegedly bought this car from Shishkanov on August 20, 2021 for 7.5 million rubles. According to their version, Shishkanov personally took the money from their home, but did not give the car back. The application was accompanied by a PTS and a purchase and sale agreement signed by Shishkanov dated the specified date.

The strange version of the “victims” was shattered by the facts. Firstly, the contract was replete with errors: the date of birth of the “victim” was incorrect, the license plate number of the car was not indicated. Secondly, on this day Shishkanov registered the car with the traffic police and received documents in his name. Data on the geolocation of the car and from CCTV cameras of the SPO Web also confirmed that the car was located in a different place; it was not near Protsenko’s house. Thirdly, only documents for the car were transferred to Miroslav Protsenko as collateral, and the ownership was and remains with Alexander Shishkanov. Protsenko could not have been unaware of this, which is confirmed, among other things, by his correspondence with Shishkanov.

For three months the car was in a special parking lot at the Ramona police department. They made sure that for a year from the expected date of sale to Protsenko, Alexander Shishkanov continued to repay the loan for the car, and in general, according to the terms of the loan agreement, the car can only be sold with the consent of the bank, and the bank did not issue such a document. As a result, they refused to initiate a criminal case, formally apologized to Shishkanov and returned the car.

“Miroslav and his mother did not stop there and filed a lawsuit. Everything was heading towards the fact that they would lose the trial. Then, on November 16, 2022, the Voronezh Central Police Department accepted a new application from them and within two days, without any checks, opened a new criminal case against me and my father. At the same time, I was not questioned or interrogated, but was immediately arrested and locked in a pre-trial detention center, together with my father. For some reason, the Voronezh police did not take into account the refusal of the Ramon department and the results of their inspection. Then they took my car away again. I assume that their lawyer Natalya Rudenko, whose husband, by the way, works in the prosecutor’s office, could have contributed to this course of events,” suggests Alexander Shishkanov.

It is possible that these connections could help Miroslav Protsenko get the car before the end of the trials – in August 2023. The Kompromat Group telegram channel writes that Miroslav Protsenko’s mother may have connections with law enforcement agencies. Whether this is so is not completely known, but investigator Olga Chebotareva did not have the right to give the victim evidence in the form of a car until the end of the trial. The car could only be transferred for safekeeping, which means that no one has the right to use the car, including Protsenko, until the court makes a final decision in his favor. However, the fines that our editorial office has at its disposal indicate that the car is being actively used. The last two fines came to Shishkanov in April 2024 from the Tula region.

“I would like to ask, on what basis does a stranger use my car? Is it only Miroslav who exploits her and even violates traffic rules? What if he gets into an accident and someone gets hurt? Knowing Miroslav’s driving style, this probability is high. Will the investigator feel guilty for the lives of the victims?” – asks Alexander Shishkanov.

The actions of the investigators gave rise to doubts and prompted an anti-corruption examination.

“Investigator O. V. Chebotareva seized the specified car and handed it over to M. V. Protsenko. At the same time, the car continues to be evidence in a criminal case, and fines from video recordings of traffic violations by M. V. Protsenko go to A. A. Shishkanov as the owner of the car. Such actions of the investigator contain signs of a crime under Art. 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Abuse of official powers”) and Art. 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Excess of official powers”), says the conclusions of the examination of forensic expert Evgeniy Biryukov. The document is at the disposal of the editors.

Previously, “Abireg” contacted Miroslav Protsenko for comments, but he did not answer the journalist’s questions and chose to block our phone number. The editors are still ready to listen and publish Mr. Protsenko’s point of view.