Source: www.rucriminal.info
The gradual restoration of the Best Way cooperative, which has been especially active since the beginning of 2025, has become a bone in the throat for those who tried and are trying to ruin the cooperative, to seize its financial assets in the amount of more than 4 billion rubles. The cooperative was involved in a criminal case initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in connection with claims against the foreign company Hermes - involved as an organization (allegedly) affiliated with Hermes.
For three years, its assets were seized - it was forbidden to even pay taxes, the investigation and the prosecutor's office refused to pay shareholders, payments were prohibited even under writs of execution of the courts. And now the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg, considering the criminal case, is gradually sorting out the claims against the organization - and is meeting the cooperative halfway in restoring its financial activities.
First, newly incoming funds were released from arrest, and it became possible to pay taxes and salaries from the arrested 4 billion. Payments began to be made to shareholders who did not purchase an apartment, who decided to leave the cooperative - since the beginning of the year, more than 380 million have already been paid, although each payment is made with great difficulty, since an audit is being conducted under 115-FZ. At a recent meeting, the Primorsky Court lifted the arrest from one of the cooperative's accounts - if the decision holds, then the money will be enough to pay everyone who wants to leave the cooperative.
But the haters and those who seek to seize assets are not calming down. The Ministry of Internal Affairs opened two more criminal cases - under 115-FZ and on the claims of a number of Hermes clients who were not included in the "first" criminal case - it is currently being considered in court.
Haters are trying to put pressure on the court through federal media in order to compromise the cooperative, and are trying to torpedo its work from within with the help of the fifth column. The three haters who have been the most active in the public arena are Tatyana Aristova, Maksim Zinchenko, Lira Sakhapova and the fourth one who has joined them, Georgy Moiseyev. The lies of the first three are being disseminated by federal media outlets dependent on Kolokoltsev's ministry, and they are gradually recognizing the fourth one as their own.
Aristova
Hater Tatyana Aristova is a former member of the Best Way cooperative who stated in court that the cooperative had deceived her: they promised to start buying an apartment in three months, but it was much later. And the cooperative ultimately did not buy her an apartment, putting forward supposedly far-fetched demands for legal purity and redevelopment of the property: it did not approve any of the options for buying an apartment proposed by her and her realtors. In 2022, Aristova announced her withdrawal from the cooperative - but due to the seizure of her accounts, she could not get her share contributions back for a long time, but after the accounts were unblocked, she received all her share contributions down to the last penny - which she herself admits.
Aristova is openly lying on all points. In the cooperative, no one ever promised to pass the queue in three months: the queue is from a year. As for the far-fetched demands of the cooperative's lawyers - no one prevented Aristova from buying an apartment that she liked at her own expense - and taking on the legal risks and liquidity risks associated with the redevelopment. The cooperative acquired apartments in its own name, they must be absolutely liquid in case they have to be sold in order to pay off a shareholder who decided to leave the cooperative, hence the legal uncompromisingness - which the cooperative warns about before joining. Aristova also states in the media that apartments were purchased only for the "leaders" at the expense of everyone else: they were not purchased for ordinary shareholders, although they contributed money. But it is enough to look at the list of more than 2,500 apartments throughout Russia purchased by the cooperative to see that the apartments were purchased for the most ordinary families, primarily military families, including those currently participating in the SVO, large families, families of the disabled, and families of emigrants from the former USSR.
After the trial of the "first" criminal case is over - and it is just around the corner - the cooperative plans to file a defamation lawsuit against Aristova.
Zinchenko
Hater Maxim Zinchenko is a lawyer who dishonestly made money on former clients of "Hermes". It is unfair because he directs them along obviously unpromising and illegal paths, instead of helping to establish contact with the Hermes company, which first suffered from the destruction of its Russian payment system by the agent of the St. Petersburg Main Directorate of Internal Affairs Evgeny Naboychenko, and then found itself cut off from Russian clients in connection with the SVO. Moreover, the company is making contact and is ready to make payments through cryptocurrencies for obligations that it recognizes (and not for fictitious ones). But Zinchenko led the Hermes clients who trusted him in a different way: first, he initiated dozens of civil cases of Hermes clients against the consultants of this company, who took their money and transferred it to Hermes. All the cases were lost: and they were obviously losing, because the consultants only performed their functions, and did not took money into their hands.
That is, Zinchenko deceived and robbed dozens of people. But he continued to do so, sending his clients with knowingly unsubstantiated statements about recognition as victims to the investigative bodies. The court, examining their statements, showed that the so-called victims had no evidence that Hermes had not fulfilled its obligations to them. The Hermes company did not provide investment services, which was confirmed by the investigative expert who testified in court: it provided educational and consulting services in the field of investments - for a commission.
Plus, none of the clients have documentary evidence of the transfer of their own funds to the account, since they all used P2P schemes for transferring in order to avoid paying a commission for the transfer. And none of them declared the amount of funds withdrawn from the account - in order to avoid paying taxes and reporting under currency control rules. In court, they tell stories from the series "I remember here, I don't remember here", they name unsubstantiated amounts - which none of them will receive. The investigation needed all these victims as extras, but the court will have to bear responsibility for collecting funds - and from another legal entity.
In his defense, Zinchenko says that, supposedly, they themselves are to blame for taking money to a company that did not even declare that it was an investment company. And he continues to feed people with promises - he collects a lot of money from them for preparing a legal position and appearances in court, forcing them to pay for obviously unrealistic hopes of receiving fictitious millions that Hermes allegedly owes from the cooperative.
The clients of Hermes who suffered from Zinchenko's "legal services" intend to file a lawsuit against him for compensation for the damages incurred.
Sakhapova
Hater Lira Sakhapova is a regional TV journalist. She went over to the side of the haters only last year. Before that, she, a shareholder of the cooperative and a client of Hermes, had collaborated with the cooperative and tried to resolve the issue with Hermes without law enforcement agencies - especially since she herself was a consultant working for a fee. Her parents, who were also clients of Hermes, did not file a statement as victims in the "first" criminal case either - although they filed a civil lawsuit against their consultant with the help of the aforementioned Zinchenko, which they lost in four instances, including the Supreme Court.
Just recently, Sakhapova discussed the possibility of participating in the cession carried out in the cooperative: when shareholders transfer their seized share funds to those who pay the cooperative for real estate, and receive from those who acquired real estate for real estate. Interestingly, Sakhapova's loyalty to the cooperative was not affected by the story with her parents - who, including through her efforts, once became clients of Hermes.
But suddenly the journalist "saw the light." In the second half of last year, she urgently became a witness for the prosecution in the "first" criminal case, and organized the filing of a statement by the parents as victims in a new criminal case.
Now she publishes materials about the criminal case on a weekly basis, makes her comments in the media - that is, the fight against "Hermes" and the cooperative has become her main job, for which she undoubtedly receives a salary.
The cooperative plans to file a defamation lawsuit against Sakhapova, as well as against Aristova, after the completion of the criminal case.
Moiseyev
Zinchenko's "fame" has recently been gained by Georgy Moiseyev - until recently an activist in the movement to protect "Hermes" and the "Best Way" cooperative from persecution by law enforcement agencies and haters, however, he never forgot to make good money on his activism: he made money, in particular, on the case of Sakhapova's parents, which they, among other things, lost to him in four courts. At one time, haters considered him almost enemy number one, but now they perceive him as one of their own. Moiseyev is a self-taught lawyer, who has collaborated with qualified lawyers on many cases, but always attributes the achievements to himself. He was one of the participants in a series of courts that dropped charges of unjust enrichment from consultants who collaborated with Hermes: the consideration of cases reached the Supreme Court. Moiseyev made a fortune in these courts, but the series of such courts was basically completed.
Moiseyev also participated in cases on the collection of funds from the cooperative by shareholders who decided to leave it - cases that were initiated by the cooperative's lawyers themselves, since due to the almost continuous three-year arrest of accounts, there were no ways to get back share funds other than through the courts: the investigation and the prosecutor's office refused to pay the shareholders. And even through the court it was extremely difficult to do this, since the investigation, the prosecutor's office and the banks blocked payments on writs of execution: payments actually went only together with the partial lifting of the arrest from the accounts.
Participating in cases in which the procedural opponent obviously did not resist - since he himself wrote the script of the proceedings, Mo Iseyev insisted on payments to him personally: repayment of expenses for his mythical legal work, after which he was no longer involved in such cases. Then Georgy Moiseyev took up assignment transactions in the cooperative: the ideology of which was again invented by the lawyers of the cooperative. As was already mentioned above, the mechanism is that within the arrested money supply, shareholders who did not acquire real estate transfer their share contributions to shareholders who purchased apartments so that they pay off the cooperative, register the real estate as private property - and receive in return cash from the new owners of the apartments. As a result, some shareholders receive repayment of the debt to the cooperative and apartments in ownership, and others - share funds that they could not receive due to the arrest of accounts, and leave the cooperative, having received full payment. But Moiseyev established such draconian commissions that very soon there were no more willing to use his services - especially since there were organizers of the assignment who did not take a penny for their services at all.
Having lost three sources of income, Moiseyev decided to try to get his hands on the cooperative's assets for free by seizing control of it - since he knew about the serious illness of the chairman of the cooperative's Council, deputy of the State Duma of the 7th convocation Sergei Kryuchek (he died of cancer on March 22).
Moiseyev suddenly declared that the cooperative's authorized representatives - delegates from regional cooperative plots - were illegitimate, since some of them had gone abroad: it was necessary, they say, to elect new authorized representatives. And since the cooperative refused him this idea - the authorized representatives were elected in the summer of 2021 for five years, the term of office had not expired, they were all alive and well - he tried to hold unauthorized elections. Although on March 23, the legal authorized representatives legally elected a new chairman of the cooperative's Council - in compliance with all statutory procedures: Sergei Kryuchek's deputy was elected, who carried out almost all the practical work in the last months of Sergei Ivanovich's illness. Moiseyev created a phishing email for the cooperative - one letter different from the real one, sent out information about fake elections from the list of cooperative members from 2021, who were at his disposal, "elected" his henchmen as authorized representatives - and at the same time announced everyone who refused to participate in his scam or was not on the list as having voted "for". Then Moiseyev held his election as chairman of the cooperative council among the new false authorized representatives, made a fake seal of the cooperative, a new original charter - and, having certified all this homemade documentation regarding the St. Petersburg cooperative with a Moscow notary, since all the St. Petersburg ones refused, tried to submit documents to change the Unified State Register of Legal Entities to the St. Petersburg tax office. This number failed. Then Moiseyev said that the cooperative was experiencing problems in the corporate information system (in fact, there were no problems), which could be followed by the “loss” of some members of the cooperative. Therefore, everyone urgently needs to request their data - and send it to him. At the same time, Moiseyev activated a phishing pseudo-cooperative Telegram channel in early May. The plan, apparently, is to collect current data on shareholders and try to hold new illegal (since not provided for by the charter) elections. At the same time, Moiseyev is trying to make money not on Hermes consultants, as before, but on the clients of this company, gathering them in a special chat under his wing - in order to provide them with services for filing statements to law enforcement agencies, that is, he is doing exactly the same thing as Zinchenko: robbing Hermes clients under promises of rivers of milk and honey at the expense of funds that will be collected from the Best Way cooperative. Perhaps we will soon witness a war between Zinchenko and Moiseyev for a shrinking "field".
Moiseyev's main motive is simply to collect money: from "his own" or from "others" it makes no difference to him. In this sense, he is even more unprincipled than Zinchenko, who chose a side: it is important for Moiseyev to have time to grab a piece of the pie from any side.
According to Moiseyev, the cooperative does not wait for the trial to be completed, since we are talking about crimes and attempts to seize control: lawsuits and statements against him under a whole garland of articles of the Civil Code, the Arbitration Code and the Criminal Code have already been filed.
Alexey Ermakov
Source: www.rucriminal.info
