Nine were taken into custody for 35 years: a verdict was issued in Kazan in the case of the "Decree Women" organized crime group for 80 million.

      The former head of the FSS branch received 6 years in a general regime colony

      Photo: Dinar Fatykhov

      Today, the Vakhitovsky Court of Kazan completed nearly six years of consideration of the case regarding fraud with social payments to maternity leave recipients as part of an organized criminal group. The court found the charges under the organized criminal group article unproven, but all nine defendants were found guilty and sentenced to a total of 35 years and 9 months in custody for fraud, reports a journalist from "Realnoe Vremya." The court, chaired by Judge Aliya Ziganshina, sentenced former head of the Kazan branch No. 1 of the regional FSS to 6 years in a general regime colony, and 5 years to the deputy director of a construction company, Timur Davletbaev. A friend of the latter, Ilgiz Mamadjanov, received six months less. Today, pensioner Lyudmila Ilyina was sentenced to 4 years, while her second cousin, the chief accountant of the "Krokus" company, Vera Sannikova, received 3 years and 3 months, also in a general regime colony.

      Ayder Yusupov. Irina Plotnikova / realnoevremya.ru

      According to the verdict, former director of the "Formula Uyuta" construction company, Adel Rahmatullin, and supplier of LLC "Flagman," Maxim Kiselev, will serve 3.5 years each. Meanwhile, former chief specialist of the insurance payment appointment department of branch No. 1, Ilmira Saitova, and installer of "Specgidrostroy," Robert Shavaliev, received 3 years of imprisonment each.

      All convicted were ordered to be taken into custody in the courtroom.

      Recall that the process in this case started back in 2020, and two judges have changed during the proceedings. Yusupov was accused of creating and leading an organized criminal group together with Belyakov and some unidentified leaders of the FSS branch, as well as of two large-scale frauds with social payments and abuse of power with serious consequences. In 2018, the deputy head of the Kazan branch No. 1 of the FSS in Tatarstan, Alexey Belyakov, was also charged in absentia with organizing an organized criminal group, but he was only detained in April 2025 and has not yet been brought to trial.

      Alexey Belyakov during his arrest in 2025. Irina Plotnikova / realnoevremya.ru

      The regional branch of the Social Insurance Fund, now the Social Fund of Russia, was recognized as the victim. A civil lawsuit against the defendants for 81,273,908 rubles was filed at the start of the case. The court did not issue a decision on it today. Since the reasoning part of the verdict was not announced, it is currently only possible to speculate whether the prosecution was able to prove the entire alleged amount of damage.

      Recall that, in addition to organizing the organized criminal group and participating in it, the defendants were charged with two long-term thefts through fraud:

      a fraud with false reporting from commercial firms amounting to 19.86 million rubles (December 2013 - June 2015) - theft by submitting knowingly false reports from shell companies about allegedly paid sick leave and maternity leave to employees (without a list of such employees). The investigation showed that the shell companies did not have such a number of employees and the right to payments, as they did not pay insurance contributions. However, through the efforts of certain FSS employees, the budget transferred insurance benefits to the fraudsters for years;

      the diversion of 61.414 million rubles through "direct" payments to maternity leave recipients (January 2016 - March 2018) - theft by submitting information to the FSS about pregnant women with false information about their employment and average earnings over two years to inflate the amount of maternity benefits. Women were used without their knowledge, promised assistance in obtaining a one-time payment from the state. In reality, mothers were left with only a small part of the illegal payments, while the rest was cashed out by the scheme participants and handed over to the organizers of the groups. The scheme was implemented when Tatarstan became a pilot region for the implementation of the federal social insurance project "Direct Payments." The project's goal was to guarantee payments to maternity leave recipients regardless of the financial situation of the enterprise.

      Irina Plotnikova / realnoevremya.ru

      Law enforcement insisted that both schemes of theft could not have been implemented without organizers and curators of the frauds from the FSS, who approved the transfers, knowing full well about the fictitiousness of the submitted documents. The case was investigated by the Main Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tatarstan, and it was noted that all suspicious acts had the signatures of Yusupov, Belyakov, and Saitova.

      Two defendants in this case are still wanted. Arslan Mukhametshin fled after the start of the process. A former mammologist surgeon at Kazan City Hospital No. 7, Gia Chukhua, originally from Georgia, was wanted at the start of the investigation. He was first placed on the federal wanted list, and in December 2020 - on the international wanted list.