The court sentenced the ex-governor of the Penza region to 12 years in prison

The Izmailovo COURT sentenced the ex-governor of the Penza region Ivan Belozertsev and the founder of the Biotek company Boris Shpigel. They were sent to a colony for 12 and 11 years, respectively. Ivan Belozertsev

On Tuesday, January 23, the Izmailovsky District Court of Moscow sentenced former governor Ivan Belozertsev to 12 years in prison and a fine of 450 million rubles, and businessman Boris Shpigel to 11 years in prison and a fine of 450 million rubles. A former official and a businessman will go to a maximum security colony. Belozertsev was also stripped of his awards and orders and banned from holding public office for 10 years.

Spiegel's wife, Evgenia, was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison.

According to state prosecutors, as a result of corrupt activities they earned 9.9 billion rubles. In November last year, the Prosecutor General's Office filed a lawsuit for this amount against Belozertsev, Shpigel and his wife Evgenia, demanding to recover this money from them and turn it into state income.

What was said in the case

Both defendants received punishment in the same criminal case related to the events of 2020. It was then, according to investigators, that the pharmaceutical company gave the official 20 million rubles, a Mercedes Benz car and a Breguet watch . For the BRIBE, the Pharmacia company controlled by Spiegel was supposed to receive advantages when concluding contracts for the supply of medicines and reagents to hospitals and clinics in the Penza region. The total amount of the bribe is estimated at 31 million rubles.

In March 2021, the Investigative Committee detained Ivan Belozertsev, then governor of the Penza region, and businessman Boris Shpigel. Oleg Melnichenko, appointed to replace Ivan Belozertsev, who was arrested for a bribe, as the acting HEAD of the Penza region, dismissed the regional government .

RBC Pro development program Master 52 skills in a year The development program is a convenient tool for continuous learning new skills for a successful career The trap of cognitive distortions: how a manager can get out of it How to force yourself to constantly move forward - nine simple tips Eight signs that indicate a confident person You everyone pisses me off: how to deal with negative feelings Good connections: what styles networking can be divided into If you are tired, downshifting is not the answer. How to save your career Business coach Matt Abrahams: don’t try to perform “correctly” What non-obvious reasons make you procrastinate “Anti-time management”: how to learn to manage everything How to memorize 30 pages at a time - advice from the Swedish Grand Master of Memory A leader from whom you can’t leaving: how to earn the loyalty of subordinates What tricks of legendary scammers will be useful to you during negotiations

Ivan Belozertsev was born in the Oryol region. He graduated from the Ulyanovsk Guards Higher Tank Military School, and then from the Humanitarian Academy of the Russian Armed Forces. From 1976 to 2004 he served in various positions in the Soviet and then Russian army. From 2004 to 2005, he served as Chairman of the Penza City Duma. In March 2005, he was elected head of the city of Penza. In March 2009, he was re-elected to this position. From 2011 to 2015, he headed the Penza regional branch of the United RUSSIA party. At the same time, he was the chairman of the regional legislative assembly. In September 2015, he became governor of the region. In 2019, he was a member of the Presidium of the State Council.

Also detained were the wife of the businessman, Evgenia Shpigel, the deputy DIRECTOR of the Penza region representative office under the Russian government, Fyodor Fedotov, the driver of the representative office, Gennady Markov, and the general director of the Pharmacia company, which is part of Biotek, Anton Koloskov. Fedotov was given a sentence of 7.5 years in prison, Markov - 7.5 years in prison.

On the day of his arrest, Belozertsev was searched, during which more than 200 million rubles were found on him. in cash, the origin of which he could not explain.

Earlier, RBC reported that the investigation relied on data from wiretaps of telephone conversations between Belozertsev and Shpigel’s entourage, which were included in the case.

Ex-governor Belozertsev admitted receiving the money, but he claimed that it was sponsorship from Spiegel for the election campaign. Spiegel's lawyers spoke about the charitable assistance provided by the businessman for the construction of a psychoneurological sanatorium in the region.

This case was also commented on by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They reported that the official received a bribe “to ensure competitive advantages in holding auctions for the provision of services to medical institutions in the region, including as part of the fight against the new CORONAVIRUS infection covid-19.”

According to the governor's defense, the Breguet watch had nothing to do with the conclusion of contracts: it was a gift. The lawyer told the court that the governor was going to return the expensive item to the businessman, but he went to Israel for treatment . The defense also challenged the bribe in the form of a Mercedes car, since the foreign car was leased from the Biotek company and did not belong to Spiegel.

At the end of 2021, a case was also opened against Belozertsev for the illegal acquisition and storage of weapons and ammunition (Article 222 of the Criminal Code). During a search in the building of the Penza regional administration, they found a Makarov pistol with the number filed off and 96 rounds of ammunition for it; a briefcase with them was lying in a closet in the ex-governor’s office. Belozertsev's lawyers say that the weapon was not found in the office, but in the utility room next to it, where anyone could get into it. They insist that the gun does not belong to the ex-governor, and regard the new investigation as a way to put pressure on the official. The defense tried to appeal the decision to open a new case in the Basmanny Court, but was refused.

The off-site hearing of the Izmailovsky Court was held in the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center. This was due to the poor HEALTH of Boris Shpigel and the impossibility of transporting him.

During the investigation and court hearings, the businessman was hospitalized several times. Spiegel’s lawyers reported on the serious health condition of the businessman, who has “an extensive and detailed history of cardiac and other diseases.” Olga Druzhinina, a member of the Public Monitoring Commission (POC) of Moscow, announced that the businessman suffered a heart attack and coronavirus infection.

Spiegel himself stated in court that he was suffocating and suggested that he had “a few days left.” “I have this torture every day, I can’t stand it,” the businessman accused of giving a bribe said in court. Despite this, the court extended the businessman’s arrest and left him in a pre-trial detention center.

What is Spiegel known for?

Spiegel founded Biotek in 1991. At the end of 2002, 100% of the parent structure of the holding - JSC Interregional Pharmaceutical Production and Distribution Corporation Biotek - was transferred to his wife Evgenia Shpigel. This happened shortly before he became a senator from the Penza region (in April 2003, in March 2013 he resigned early).

In 2005, as part of the government reform “monetization of benefits,” the country launched an additional drug supply program (DLO), which gave socially vulnerable segments of the population (veterans, disabled people, low-income citizens and others) the opportunity to receive certain drugs in pharmacies for free with a doctor’s prescription. Biotek became one of four suppliers of this program, for which a total of almost 115 billion rubles were allocated from 2005 to 2007. And in 2006, the holding found itself at the center of a corruption scandal after the Prosecutor General’s Office began an investigation into the case of bribery of employees of the Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund, from which DLO was financed. According to investigators, one of the bribe-payers was the former general director of Biotek, Oleg Kovalev. But in 2009, the jury found his guilt unproven, while almost all of the former management of the fund received real sentences.

By the time of Spiegel’s arrest in March 2021, the holding included two factories - Marbiofarm in Yoshkar-Ola and Biodez in Lytkarino, Moscow region, producing vitamins, drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, anti-inflammatory drugs and a number of other drugs, a pharmacy chain from 257 points in Penza, Nizhny Novgorod and Kirov, as well as the Penza medical center "Aesculapius".

But Biotek’s main asset remained its distribution business , which until 2021 continued to be one of the largest suppliers of medicines in the country. According to industry analytical company DSM Group, at the end of 2020, sales of the Biotek distribution division amounted to 41.1 billion rubles, and the market share of drug supplies was 2.4%. The company specialized in government procurement, in particular, within the framework of one of the most expensive government programs “14 high-cost nosologies”, providing therapy for patients with rare serious diseases. Before Spiegel’s arrest, Biotek also managed to conclude a contract for 590 million rubles. for the supply of the drug Spinraza for the Circle of Good Foundation, created in 2021, which purchases medicines for children with rare serious diseases.

In 2021, according to SPARK-Interfax, Biotek LLC, which specializes in wholesale supplies of pharmaceutical products, entered into government contracts worth 6.1 billion rubles. against 14.6 billion rubles. a year earlier, in 2022 - by 123.4 million rubles, and there is no information for 2023 at all. In March 2023, a monitoring procedure was introduced against this legal entity, and in December its parent company, Interregional Pharmaceutical Production and Distribution Corporation Biotek JSC, was declared bankrupt.

The only assets of the holding that are actually still operating are the pharmacy chain and two manufacturing enterprises - Biodez and Marbiopharm. Although they have significantly reduced the figures. Thus, according to SPARK-Interfax, Marbiopharm’s revenue in 2022 fell to 523.3 million rubles. from 1 billion rubles. a year earlier, the net loss amounted to 83.1 million rubles. with a profit of 45.9 million rubles. in 2021. At Biodez, the performance worsened back in 2021, when revenue decreased from RUB 456.8 million. a year earlier to 33.5 million rubles, and the loss amounted to 167.7 million rubles. Monitoring procedures have not been introduced at these enterprises, but last year the tax authorities filed an application to declare Marbiopharm bankrupt, and it is now under consideration. A bankruptcy case has also been initiated against the manager of the Penza pharmacy chain Pharmacia OJSC.

In April 2023, the holding’s assets were transferred to the management of the owner of the Kursk chain “Pharmacy Traditions”, Dmitry Rutsky, well-known in the pharmaceutical market. His task was to “stabilize situations in companies and bring them out of a protracted difficult financial situation,” he told the industry publication Vademecum. Last October, Marbiopharm carried out an additional share issue, after which its parent structure, owned by Evgenia Shpigel, and she herself went to court demanding that the relevant decision be declared invalid. This case is pending.

In addition, in January of this year, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country, Viktor Kharitonin’s Pharmstandard, went to court with a demand to foreclose on Pharmacia shares. They were pledged to Pharmstandard by Biotek, which owed Kharitonin’s company more than 600 million rubles.