Another Director of “Torgovy Mir Koltso” Marketplace Arrested :: Charter'97 :: News

Minsk region procuracy sanctioned the arrest of Nikolai Kravchenko, who’s been long time working as deputy director of the car market “Torgovy Mir Koltso” (TMK). The procuracy charges him with tax-evasion, reports the “Belorusskaya Gazeta”. This wasn’t the first criminal lawsuit, instituted against the market’s administration.

For the first time the market’s name appeared in the police reports in November last year, when they arrested “TMK” director Alexander Vasilevsky and his subordinate controller Vyachslav Deribo. As mentioned in the prosecutor’s report, “Vasilevsky in November 23-28, 2001 upon the preliminary consent with Deribo and other unidentified officials, extorted bribes from the traders for providing the latter with the trade places”. Both men were charged with money extortion.

Shortly after the institution of criminal action, the “TMK” representatives, talking to the “Belorusskaya Gazeta” correspondent, said that there’s no queue for getting the trade spots at the market, meaning that the entrepreneurs didn’t have to bribe anyone. Interestingly, not all of the market’s representatives dared answer the press questions. The market’s director general Mikhail Lashkevich categorically refused to mention in a phone talk the exact number of trade places at “TMK” and hanged up. One could only guess what the man feared. It is known that at the moment the investigation possesses data about the existence of a criminal group at the market, which included around 10 individuals – both directors and their subordinates.

In course of the investigation we learnt that the officials and their aides never received any money as bribes. Now Vasilevsky and Deribo’s cases were re-qualified into “deliberate tax-evasion”. Under the same article in June 2002 they launched legal action against Kravchenko, who had allegedly submitted false reports to the tax inspection.