Hunting for lonely old people and apartment raiding

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Three high-profile cases involving apartment fraudsters at once became public in February 2020. In two cases, the cases were taken under control by the Investigative Committee and its head, Alexander Bastrykin.

The head of the Investigative Committee of Russia ordered to take control of several criminal cases related to apartment fraud, equity raiding and the takeover of housing from Russians, including lonely pensioners. Alexander Bastrykin. IA REGNUMtalks about the last few cases.

Apartment

Ivan Shilov © IA REGNUM

"Equity Raiders"

On February 10, 2020, Vesti aired a story about two Moscow families who became victims of apartment raiders. The situation is not uncommon for Russia, where many apartments are in shared ownership, which gives the right to use the living space at once to several citizens, sometimes not related by kinship.

The story took place in one of the districts of Moscow. Unidentified men, after the residents refused to let them in, drilled the locks with the help of professional tools and entered the apartment. When the police arrived, they introduced themselves as the new owners of the share that their mother-in-law had previously sold them. Olga - the mistress of the remaining share. Olga said that her mother-in-law died in the car in front of the notary's door in the summer and there are many questions about her sudden death.

In the second piece, the TV company told about a similar situation in the apartment of a large family, where the locks were also opened. The owner of the share in the second apartment Lyudmila Z … told that she was offered from the doorway to buy out the share at an inflated price or to “get out of the apartment” within 24 hours.

Both of these stories are united by a certain citizen B., who presented himself as the owner of the shares.

After unsuccessful attempts to move in in both cases, the buyer of the shares tried to move into the apartments through the courts. The judges left the claims unsatisfied, but peace did not come for the tenants of both apartments. Now the failed tenant threatens to sell his share to a third party and "repeat" the whole procedure again.

This story became the basis for a pre-investigation check by the investigating authorities of the main investigation department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in Moscow. Investigators plan to check all the facts and, possibly, there will be more victims in this case.

Alexander Bastrykin instructed the leadership of the State Administration to report on the progress of the audit, which was put under control in the central office.

Alexander Bastyrkin.

Lonely owners of "square meters", and especially pensioners, are at risk.

In February 2020, the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia instructed to thoroughly understand the story announced in the media. It was about fraudulent schemes for transferring rights to apartments of lonely elderly Muscovites.

In one of the programs of the federal channel, a story was released about lonely pensioners who, after signing a life annuity agreement, which assumed the transfer of an apartment in exchange for care and assistance, disappeared in an unknown direction.

One of the victims said that she signed a contract with a certain Vitaly D … After the broadcast, several more victims of the same citizen, including the spouse of a pensioner who disappeared more than seven years ago, whose family lost two apartments, turned to the editorial office of the TV channel.

They do not try to look for lonely old people, since, as a rule, there is no one to worry about their fate and contact the police. If friends are found, then forged letters appear asking the missing not to look for them. The new homeowners, who received it through rent contracts, claim that everything is fine with their former wards.

“A contract for life annuity is an agreement in accordance with which the recipient transfers the property belonging to him into the ownership of the annuity payer, who, in turn, undertakes to periodically pay a certain amount of money in exchange for the property received, while the term of the obligation to pay is determined by the life of the recipient of the rent or a third party indicated by him ", - the lawyer in criminal cases commented to the portal" Man and Law " Sergey Kolomiets.

Unfortunately, similar cases are not uncommon in other regions of Russia.

"Black realtors"

Investigators of the Tver region have been investigating a high-profile criminal case since the fall of 2019. It began with the discovery of the body of an elderly woman with traces of violent death in the Nerl River of the Kalyazinsky District. The check showed that the deceased owned two apartments in Yaroslavl, and some time before her death transferred them to third parties.

A gang of black realtors killed a resident of Yaroslavl because of two apartments.

Tver.sledcom.ru

The investigation of this case helped to identify a whole gang of "black realtors" who operated on the territory of two regions - the Yaroslavl and Tver regions. The landlady was killed to hide the apartment fraud.

In February 2020, investigators reported that they had tracked down three gang members - two women (34 and 52 years old), as well as a 40-year-old man. Two defendants were arrested and taken into custody. The third member of the criminal group went on the run and was put on the wanted list, but today she was also detained.

The Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Tver Region notes that the investigation is ongoing, the accused will be checked for involvement in similar crimes.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, in 2019, half of all registered crimes is theft of other people's property. Of these, almost 20%, or 257.2 thousand crimes, are fraud. It is not known how much of this volume falls on apartment fraud, but back in 2015, about 20 thousand crimes with apartments were recorded in the Russian Federation annually.