Moscow’s Presnensky District Court has sent blogger Elena Blinovskaya under house arrest for two months, until June 26. This was reported to Russian media in the press service of the court.
How informed The Moscow prosecutor’s office Blinovskaya was prohibited from leaving the house, using the Internet, communicating with participants in the criminal case, except for her husband, as well as sending and receiving postal and telegraphic messages.
The day before, on April 27, the blogger was charged under articles on large-scale tax evasion (part 2 of article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and large-scale money laundering scale (clause “b” of part 4 of article 174.1 of the RF Criminal Code). According to investigators, Blinovskaya used a business split plan, underestimated income and did not pay taxes for the period 2019-2021 in the total amount of more than 918 million rubles. According to the first article, a blogger can face up to three years in prison, and according to the second, up to seven years.
On April 28, the Investigative Committee reported that Blinovskaya, during her interrogation, repented of her act and fully admitted her guilt.
Detention of Blinovskaya
Elena Blinovskaya was arrested around 5 a.m. on April 27 at a checkpoint in the Smolensk region on her way to Belarus. How informed Baza Telegram Channel, in the car with her were her driver and security guard.
According to the telegram channel 112, the case against the creator of the “marathon of desires” was opened on April 26, the same day that Blinovskaya bought a ticket to Almaty. The plane took off on April 27 at five o’clock in the morning. However, according to 112, Blinovskaya was warned of a possible detention, so at one o’clock in the morning she ordered a Maybach with a driver and headed for Belarus.
Later, the commission of inquiry published a video of the blogger’s detention and a search of her home. On the evening of April 27, Blinovskaya was brought for questioning to the building of the Main Investigative Department of the Russian Investigative Committee for Moscow.
Read more about detention in Russian media material.
Cases against bloggers
At the end of March, the telegram channel SHOT, citing a source reported that police launched a check on Blinovskaya after several participants in her “marathon of desires” said they had been cheated. “Some took out hundreds of thousands of rubles in loans to pay for consultations, and their lives, apparently, did not improve,” the publication notes. SHOT also wrote that some public figures approached the attorney general’s office with a request to audit the blogger for tax evasion. Blinovskaya called this information false.
In March, criminal charges were also brought against blogger Valeria Chekalina (ler_chek) and her husband Artem. They are accused of tax evasion and complicity in tax evasion, as well as large-scale money laundering. According to the investigation, Chekalina did not pay taxes in the amount of more than 300 million rubles. income “from the provision of services for the implementation of fitness marathons” and that the spouses legalized more than 130 million rubles obtained by criminal means. Chekalin chose restraint in the form of a ban on certain actions.
Why did the tax start chasing bloggers and who else should be worried, Vadim Bagaturia, a partner at Freitak and Sons Bar Association, told Russian media. Ekaterina Smirnova, partner at D&A Partners, also explained why so many people are willing to pay for successful training.
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