Reshuffles are expected in the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation at the beginning of 2017. © Photo from the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.rf
Serious personnel changes may occur in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in 2017. In particular, Deputy Minister Mikhail Vanichkin, who oversees the criminal bloc, may leave his post. This is largely due to the fact that his son Maxim is running for the post of head of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department (MUR).
Several sources in the Ministry of Internal Affairs told Rosbalt that Mikhail Vanichkin may leave his post in the coming months. “Mikhail Georgievich went on sick leave, then he had a vacation. However, we have already been informed that he is leaving his position. It is expected that this will be formalized before February 2017,” said one of the agency’s interlocutors. “The candidacies of those who can take the vacant seat are now being actively discussed. The options are called different, sometimes exotic. However, most often they say that one of the senior FSB officers could become the new deputy minister,” another Rosbalt source said.
As Rosbalt already reported, in November 2016, the leadership of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow announced to the employees of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department that they would definitely have a new chief in February 2017. Since the end of September 2016, Alexander Polovinka has been the acting head of the MUR. He took this position after the former head of the Ugro, Igor Zinoviev, resigned. Even under Zinoviev and the former head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow, Anatoly Yakunin, the MUR was reformed, the organizational structure changed, and the staff increased. Previously, the structure of the Moscow criminal investigation department had only one department that dealt with criminal elements - people from both the Caucasus and Central Asia. After the reform, three divisions will deal with these areas at once.
The first has the code name “Caucasus” and is “developing” gangsters who come from the Russian North Caucasus. The second is designated as “Transcaucasia” - it fights organized crime groups consisting of visitors from the Caucasian CIS countries. The third division is called “Central Asia” and works to expose criminals from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The MUR also has an operational investigative unit dedicated to uncovering general criminal fraud.
On the eve of Defender of the Fatherland Day, the legendary Moscow Criminal Investigation Department (MUR) may finally have a new leader.
He will be a police colonel, hereditary detective Maxim Vanichkin, the son of Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Mikhail Vanichkin, a long-time colleague and friend since the time of joint service in the 80s of the last century in the MUR of Police General Vladimir Kolokoltsev.
Maybe that’s why at the end of last week, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Kolokoltsev, personally came to the capital’s headquarters on Petrovka, 38, and introduced Colonel Maxim Vanichkin to the Moscow police chief Oleg Baranov as the future head of the MUR, giving him the most flattering recommendations.
The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation spoke of Colonel Vanichkin as a brilliant detective, an excellent organizer and an officer with enormous leadership potential who knows first-hand the work of an operative.
In the coming days, the intrigue with the appointment of a new head of the MUR should end. The main problem that hindered the appointment of Colonel Maxim Vanichkin to a leadership position has been resolved. His father, a police colonel general, deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, who oversees the criminal bloc in the department, submitted a report on his retirement, a source in the central apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation familiar with the situation tells Life.
According to him, it was Maxim Vanichkin who should have taken the post
the head of the MUR back in September 2016. However, last fall, Vanichkin Jr.’s candidacy was not approved by the Presidential Administration, since his appointment violated the current legislation, which prohibits relatives from being directly subordinate to each other.
It would turn out that the head of the MUR, Maxim Vanichkin, would carry out the instructions of his father, the deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who oversees the activities of operational units in the regions in the department: criminal investigation, economic security, and the fight against drugs. And now a way out has been found. Mikhail Georgievich turned 60 last year, 2016. And at the beginning of February 2017, he submitted a report on his resignation to the president,” says Life’s interlocutor from the general’s entourage.
Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee Kirill Kabanov also agrees with Life’s source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
In the story of the delay in the appointment of Maxim Vanichkin as head of the MUR, there is precisely a so-called conflict of interest, or rather the direct subordination of one relative to another. In this situation, the son would fall under direct subordination to his father, which is a violation of Russian legislation on civil service, the chairman of the NAC told Life.
Meanwhile, Life's sources in the Presidential Administration do not rule out that the head of state, Vladimir Putin, may by one decree dismiss Vanichkin Sr. and appoint the younger one to head the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department.
Life was unable to promptly receive an official comment on the reshuffles in the leadership of the capital's main headquarters in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, since the police department stated that they do not comment on rumors, and they do not have official information about the reshuffles.
Let us remind you that the post of the head of the MUR became vacant at the beginning of October 2016. Then, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, Major General Igor Zinoviev, who headed the capital's UGRO, was appointed head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Eastern District of Moscow, and his predecessor, Major General Sergei Plakhikh, headed the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Kaluga Region.
The appointment of Maxim Vanichkin to the post of head of the MUR was then prevented by administrative and legislative barriers.
According to Life, the appointment of Maxim Vanichkin as head of the MUR in the fall of 2016, as now, was advocated by his current head, police lieutenant general, head of the Main Directorate for Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Viktor Golovanov, a friend of Vanichkin Sr. and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev. All three worked at the MUR in the 80s.
For the last four years, Colonel Maxim Vanichkin has worked under Golovanov. It was the head of the GUUR who asked Vladimir Kolokoltsev back in the spring of 2016 to take a closer look at Vanichkin Jr. as a candidate for the post of head of the MUR, reports Life’s source at the GUUR of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Colleagues of Maxim Vanichkin note that until 2013 he himself served in the MUR in operational positions, where he took an active part in the search for those who attacked the artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater Sergei Filin. Then unknown persons threw acid in the artist’s face, as a result of which he partially lost his sight. Detectives managed to detain the perpetrators and organizer of the crime. It turned out to be the Bolshoi Theater ballet soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko. He was sentenced by the court to 5.5 years in prison. On May 31, 2016, he was released on parole.
In addition, Colonel Vanichkin participated in the search and arrest of the killer Orkhan Zeynalov in October 2013. He stabbed to death football fan Yegor Shcherbakov in the capital's Biryulyovo district. A 30-year-old Azerbaijani, who worked part-time as a private driver, was caught for five days by employees of the Main Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. He was detained in a park in the Moscow region town of Kolomna by SOBR soldiers.
Life has learned the details of a sudden FSB inspection of the capital's Criminal Investigation Department.
According to investigators, the previously detained gang of “black realtors,” including a MUR operative, had been working according to a well-established scheme for more than ten years. The group, which sold apartments to lonely and disadvantaged Muscovites, included more than 10 people. These are police officers, lawyers, notaries and employees of a number of real estate agencies in the capital.
The senior detective of the 13th department of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department for apartment fraud, 44-year-old police lieutenant colonel Vladimir Khramtsov, and several of his colleagues are now under investigation for participation in this gang. Their accomplices, realtors, testified against the police. Employees of the relevant department of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, using their official position and information, have been identifying disadvantaged or lonely people in Moscow since 2006, said a source in law enforcement agencies.
After this, the gang members convinced people leading an antisocial lifestyle to exchange their apartments - the owners were moved from 2-3-room apartments to dormitories. The vacated housing was then resold by gang members working in real estate offices. At the moment, the case is being supervised by the Central Office of the FSB, since, according to investigators, high-ranking officials and security forces are involved in the activities of “black realtors”.
During interrogations, the suspects stated that part of the apartments was spent on gifts for leaders in law enforcement agencies, including the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow. Thanks to this, the well-functioning scheme worked for 10 years,” said a source in law enforcement agencies. “The last head of the 13th department of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, Dmitry Uraikin, has so far been interrogated as a witness, but under pressure from management, he resigned a month before the arrest of the gang members,” the source said.
At the moment, the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for Moscow continues to investigate the case. As Life learned, the searches that took place within the walls of Petrovka, 38 the day before, July 5, 2016, are directly related to the verification of the activities of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. In particular, FSB specialists will study in detail the secrecy regime in the department, as well as documentation and accompanying materials on all criminal cases and even operational developments. Therefore, employees of the FSB of the Russian Federation and the Main Directorate for Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation will be checking the MUR over the next three months.
Let us recall that on the night of May 18, 2016, Vladimir Khramtsov, a senior operative of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department for apartment fraud, was detained. A day earlier, another gang member tried to escape from the pre-trial detention center - a former district police officer, who later became the general director of a real estate agency and was a member of the gang.
Now former police lieutenant colonel Khramtsov is suspected of creating and participating in an organized criminal community. Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. If the ex-detective’s guilt is proven in court, he could go to prison for up to 20 years, says a Life source in the Russian Investigative Committee about Moscow. According to him, more than 10 people are being investigated in a criminal case for real estate fraud in the capital.
According to the investigation, Lieutenant Colonel Khramtsov’s job in the gang was that, taking advantage of his official position, he looked for apartments in which lonely pensioners or drinking citizens lived.
After all, it was his job responsibilities to collect information about problem apartments, the owners of which did not have close relatives, in order to then send petitions to the Rosregistration offices to impose a ban on carrying out any transactions (purchase and sale, exchange, donation) with these apartments. To collect this information, the lieutenant colonel met in different areas of Moscow with local police officers and employees of social security centers who looked after pensioners and single people, says a source in the investigation.
But, as investigators found out, after these meetings, the “werewolf in uniform” did not transfer the collected information about problem apartments to the departments of Rosregistration. Using this information, he created a database of so-called “ownerless” apartments, which he and his accomplices used when planning and committing crimes.
Employees of the RF Investigative Committee for Moscow are now checking information that a gang of “black realtors”, which included a lieutenant colonel of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, began operating in the capital in 2006. Then, for the first time, a police officer and his accomplices managed to forge the will of a deceased pensioner and sell his apartment.
According to Life, operational information from employees of the Internal Security Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation that Vladimir Khramtsov may be involved in this crime appeared back in 2010. Then, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB of the Russian Federation neutralized one of the largest groups in the capital, which stole more than a hundred apartments.
The members of the gang were notaries, lawyers, employees of social service centers and emergency departments in Moscow. Among them was an officer of the 11th department of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, Yuri Egorov.
The policeman began to cooperate with the investigation, concluding a pre-trial agreement. During interrogations, he spoke about dozens of episodes of apartment fraud that he knew about, and named the names of his accomplices - lawyers, realtors, social workers and employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, says Life's source in the Investigative Committee.
In 2013, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Yegorov, a former Murovite and colleague of Vladimir Khramtsov, to five years in prison.
It was during the investigation of the “Egorov case” that investigators first heard the name of Vladimir Khramtsov. However, the investigation was unable to prove the lieutenant colonel’s connection with the gang episode dating back to 2006, says Life’s source in law enforcement. - But the MUR operative was then taken into account by the employees of the Internal Security Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in Moscow, and why in 2011 he managed, having a “wolf” ticket, to pass recertification when the police were transformed into the police, remains a mystery. We'll figure out.
Meanwhile, according to Life, it is precisely because of the investigation into the criminal case of “black realtors”, in which Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Khramtsov played one of the key roles, that the MUR may change its boss in the coming days.
The head of the MUR, Police Major General Viktor Zinoviev, will most likely be sent into honorable exile - to lead the police of the Eastern Administrative District of the capital. And his place may be taken by the son of the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Colonel General Mikhail Vanichkin - Maxim. Vanichkin Jr. served in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department until 2013, but after a number of successful operations he received the rank of colonel and was transferred to the Main Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for promotion.
The appointment of Vanichkin Jr. as head of the MUR is supported by its current head, Lieutenant General of Police, Head of the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Viktor Golovanov. For the last three years, Colonel Maxim Vanichkin has been working under Golovanov, a friend of Vanichkin Sr. and Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. All three worked at the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department in the 80s, and Golovanov at one time was even the boss of the current minister.
The head of the main department, Lieutenant General Anatoly Yakunin, is opposed to his appointment: he wants to put his protégé, deputy chief of the Moscow police, Colonel Gennady Golikov, in charge of the MUR, Colonel Gennady Golikov, who is in charge of all duty units of the district police departments and subordinate to the main department of internal affairs.
According to Life's source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, there is no personnel decision regarding Maxim Vanichkin yet, since Vladimir Kolokoltsev is deciding how to make sure that this “personnel reshuffle” does not offend either old friends from the service at Petrovka, 38, or the head of the metropolitan police Anatoly Yakunin, whom he himself invited in the spring of 2012 to move to Moscow from Novgorod, where the general headed the regional police.
The press service of the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow reports that as part of the ongoing reorganization, employees of three departments of the Main Investigation Department of the capital's police will be removed from the staff. And apparently, this is only the beginning of large-scale changes both in the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow and in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department.
Lonely "homicide department"
Hot news - almost all personnel are being retired. According to TASS, the only exception was the employees of the “homicide department” of the criminal investigation department (1st operational investigative unit, which investigates murders). Let us note that about 4,000 people serve in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, which is 5% of the number of personnel of the capital police. Removal from staff, as the agency's source clarifies, does not necessarily mean dismissal, but implies a different format of cooperation. Obviously, not everyone will be accepted back after the reorganization. Some of those who return to service will have to go to work in new units.
An order was given to him...
Another reason for conversation is the not yet officially confirmed, but clearly not groundless, message that the head of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, Major General, will soon retire Igor Zinoviev– supposedly, the position of head of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Eastern Administrative District has already been prepared for him (the current chief, Major General Sergey Plakhikh, in this case, will take the position of head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Kaluga Region with a promotion to lieutenant general). Zinoviev has been the head of the MUR for the last 2.5 years; before that he headed the Northern District Administration of the capital.
Official confirmation of Major General Zinoviev's resignation can be expected in early September. The major general, according to sources, has already been familiarized with the order.
Vanichkin or Golikov?
It is not known who, in the event of resignation, will occupy Zinoviev’s cabinet - according to preliminary information, a candidate has not yet been found. As Life suggests, a real war could break out over the vacant position. The main candidates for the position of head of the MUR are: Maxim Vanichkin And Gennady Golikov. Both are police colonels, professionals, military officers. Both have their pros and cons, which are now carefully weighed by the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Colonel Gennady Golikov is the deputy chief of the Moscow police, and is in charge of all duty units of the regional police departments. He has combat experience in Afghanistan and business trips to the North Caucasus. Enjoys great confidence from the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for Moscow, Lieutenant General Anatoly Yakunina, under whose leadership he served in the Voronezh and Novgorod regions, including as a deputy.
Colonel Maxim Vanichkin is the son of the deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, an experienced employee of the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Among the well-known investigations with his participation is the case of an attempt on the life of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater Sergei Filin, search and detention of Orkhan Zeynalov, who in October 2013 killed football fan Yegor Shcherbakov in Biryulyovo.
Against corruption and leaks
The decision on changes in the structure of the Investigative Unit for the investigation of organized criminal activities, as the press service of the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow explains, was made “in order to optimize the organizational structure and increase the efficiency of the investigation of crimes committed by organized criminal groups and communities.”
Specific charges have not been brought against anyone (yet?), but, as the TASS news agency reports, citing its sources, while carrying out a reorganization at the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, the leadership of the Moscow Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs “Tries to achieve not only operational efficiency, but also to get rid of corrupt officials”. Employees whose activities require contact with the media have also been removed from the staff - presumably, in this way the management of the MUR intends to combat the leakage of operational information (it is no secret that some law enforcement officers are engaged in informing the yellow press on a paid basis, but it is possible that “it was leaked » information not only in the media).
Some Moscow police officers will also be reassigned: for example, the 4th operational investigative unit, previously responsible for the fight against drug trafficking, will now counter “general fraud”; changes are also expected in the 6th ORCh, which is fighting organized crime .
These changes had been expected since the spring: after the president liquidated the Federal Drug Control Service in April, the functions of the service for combating drug trafficking were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and accordingly, the Main Directorate for Drug Control (GUNK) was added to the structure of the department.
Is it about “black realtors”?
It is not without reason that they say that such large-scale changes in law enforcement structures are the result of the case of “black realtors”, employees of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, accused of organizing a gang involved in apartment fraud. In May, “black realtors” were detained by FSB officers. As it became known, the MUR officers are the senior investigator of the 13th MUR division, lieutenant colonel Vladimir Khramtsov and his subordinates - for more than 10 years they were involved in housing scams for lonely, elderly, disadvantaged Muscovites, “voluntarily and forcibly” moving them into dormitories. The vacated apartments were partially sold, and partially given “as a gift” to the heads of Moscow’s law enforcement agencies. The information that came to light about these abuses became the reason for the resignation of the head of the 13th (profile) department of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. Dmitry Uraykin, who is a witness in the case of “black realtors”, and a large-scale internal audit by the FSB and the Internal Security Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
But the case of “black realtors” is not the only scandal that marked the period of the leadership of the MUR by Igor Zinoviev. Thus, in the fall of 2015, several criminal intelligence operatives were arrested for falsifying evidence and abuse of authority, and at the same time, searches were also carried out in the famous building on Petrovka, 38. Perhaps right now all these stories will come back to haunt us.
Will everything remain the same?
So far, all the unofficial reports that have appeared, which have caused so much talk about reforms in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, have not been confirmed by the Moscow police. The head of the press service of the Main Directorate, Sofya Khotina, in a commentary to RIA Novosti reported that “the capital police are not carrying out any reforms in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department other than the creation of an operational investigative unit to combat fraud.” According to Khotina, the new division will deal with the detection of traditional types of fraud, including those committed using mobile communications and the Internet, as well as scams involving forged court documents and “black realtors.” The head of the press service also clarified that all employees will return to the MUR staff after the completion of the transformation.
Igor Zinoviev was born in 1964 in Moscow, in 1989 he graduated from the Higher Police School of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. He has been working in the internal affairs bodies since 1985; he began his career as a criminal investigation officer. In December 2011, he became the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Northern Administrative District (NAD) of Moscow, in 2014 he was appointed to the post of head of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, replacing Alexander Trushkin, who is believed to have resigned due to a conflict with the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow by Anatoly Yakunin.
During his service, he was awarded state and departmental awards, including medals “For Distinction in Service” I, II, III degrees, “For Impeccable Service” III degrees, and “For Combat Cooperation”.
