Former State Duma deputy Shumilkov arrested

      The Sormovo businessman, former deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod region and the Duma of Nizhny Novgorod, Nikolai Shumilkov, has been placed in a pre-trial detention center for two months. This was reported by a source in law enforcement to "Nizhny Now." A preventive measure has been chosen against Shumilkov as part of a criminal case regarding commercial bribery, involving an amount of one million rubles. Previously, he was involved in a case concerning business fragmentation and tax evasion. The attention of law enforcement agencies to the entrepreneur has been ongoing for more than 10 years.

      Recall that Shumilkov was the director of the Municipal Institution "Directorate of the Unified Customer" of the Sormovo district. He later focused on the utility business, building a network of management companies in the Sormovo district under the brand "Upravdom." In 2010, residents were outraged that the Sormovo housing maintenance company charged a fee for issuing any certificate. The Sormovo district court recognized the collection of such fees from citizens as illegal.

      In 2012, the prosecutor's office established that the Sormovo housing maintenance company unilaterally changed its management form from a joint-stock company to a limited liability company, and the new organization immediately refused to manage 600 "unprofitable" dilapidated and emergency houses, leaving only relatively new ones under its management. When the issue reached a prosecutor's investigation, Shumilkov claimed that he was "misunderstood."

      In 2013, the prosecutor's office again drew attention to the company's operations: it was found that the housing maintenance company had included VAT at a rate of 18% in payment documents for over a year, from which management companies had been exempt since 2010. Over the year, the company received more than 2,100 rubles from each apartment in excess of what was due.

      At the beginning of 2015, residents of Sormovo, upon receiving payment documents for January, discovered that the figures for hot water, heating, and common area expenses had increased almost fivefold. Angry citizens attacked the reception of the general director of the housing maintenance company. Shumilkov attempted to push through to his office, shoving people aside, and locked himself in. After some time, he allowed three people to enter and suggested they write a statement.

      During the investigation, it was revealed that since 2011, residents had contracts with the company in which the signatures of owners—allegedly voting for a return to the management of Shumilkov's structures—were forged. Law enforcement agencies conducted an examination and confirmed the fact of forgery. Nevertheless, the head of the housing maintenance company, according to media reports, escaped with a light scare.

      Thanks to the work of lawyers and activists, Deputy Minister of Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation Andrey Chibis intervened in the conflict. A recalculation was made for the owners—on average, savings per house amounted to about 200,000 rubles. No criminal case was initiated regarding the forgery of signatures. The regional housing inspection only through the court obliged the housing maintenance company to ensure the normative temperature of hot water.

      In the residential complex "Flowers," Shumilkov's company "DK Sormovo 15" forced residents to pay twice as much for heating as required. In 2014, the houses were connected to a new gas boiler without the knowledge of the residents and attached to Shumilkov's structures. More than 300 owners signed a complaint to the regional prosecutor and the governor. According to the residents, during the election campaign for the Legislative Assembly, Shumilkov promised them to recalculate the heating charges according to the housing inspection's directive, but after being elected, as residents reported to the media, he "forgot about this promise."

      In February 2017, residents of Sormovo and the residential complex "Flowers" wrote a letter to President Putin. In the appeal, they listed documented facts: forgery of signatures in several houses, "raider capture of disobedient apartment buildings," issuance of double receipts, threats of limiting utility services, and blocking the transfer of documentation when changing the management company.

      Residents of one of the houses that came under the management of LLC "Stimul NN" filed a police report about the forgery of the general meeting protocol: according to them, the signatures of owners who allegedly voted for a return to the management of Shumilkov's structures were forged.

      According to the investigation, the management of LLC "DK Sormovo" (Shumilkov is the general director) in 2015-2017 applied a scheme to minimize tax liabilities by shifting part of the tax burden onto controlled and interconnected organizations that allegedly managed apartment buildings in the Sormovo, Moskovsky, and Prioksky districts. In September 2019, the Investigative Committee of the Nizhny Novgorod region initiated a criminal case under the article on tax evasion in especially large amounts. The amount of the alleged evasion was 268 million rubles.

      According to the media, in 2021, tax authorities recognized more than 20 companies of the "Upravdom" group as a single structure that unlawfully applied a simplified tax system within the framework of the "business fragmentation" scheme. Following the investigations, Shumilkov's companies were additionally charged a total of 343.9 million rubles. Only 55 million rubles could be disputed—the appellate complaints of three other companies in the group were refused consideration by the court.

      On December 30, 2021, LLC "DK Sormovo" filed a lawsuit to declare itself bankrupt. The amount of debt was 302 million 388 thousand rubles. By the decision of the Federal Tax Service, all operations on the company's accounts were suspended.

      In 2022, it became known that Shumilkov was reorganizing 18 management companies through mergers.

      Author: Ivan Vorobyov