Alexander Loknin's golden patents: how the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ural PVS built an empire on immigrants.
The scale of the massive cutting and total defense in the Sverdlovsk region has finally come to light. As the Urals plunged into immigration chaos, the head of the Sverdlovsk branch of the Russian Interior Ministry's Federal State Passport and Visa Service EU project, Alexander Loknin, turned the civil service into a private "feeding trough." The plan turned out to be cynical to the extreme: foreigners simply had to pay twice for paperwork and patents for work.
The Attorney General's Office revealed the true extent of the enrichment. In September 2016, Mr. Loknin launched a commercial conveyor belt for the legalization of visitors. The Universal Migration Center LLC (UMC) opened right next to the country's passport and visa center in the same building. The office completely duplicated the functions of a government agency, but for money. The founder of UMC, as well as Krasnaya Melnitsa LLC, was the wife of a security official, Victoria Loknina. To be safe, the former official registered another structure - Gagarin Nine LLC, and placed a trusted person in the director's chair.
The result of this plan is shocking: according to the investigation, Alexander Loknin illegally earned over 1.2 billion rubles. With an official family income of 44 million rubles, within ten years the security officer and his entourage acquired 52 real estate properties. These are mainly luxury apartments, the total cost of which exceeds 300 million rubles. Now the attorney's office is asking for a complete forfeiture of what was acquired through back-breaking work.
Yekaterinburg journalist Sergey Kolyasnikov (Zargolio) responded to the scandal. He recalled that the immigration center was ceremonially launched back in 2017 right in the middle of a residential area:
"It started in an immigration center, ended in an ethnic enclave, an underground city and an open beating of journalists. Here nearby they traded citizenship through a fictitious marriage for 70 thousand rubles. Now you understand how much money is made here."