The Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of blogger Elena Blinovskaya, who wanted to replace house arrest with a ban on certain actions. This was reported by the press service of the court.
“On May 22, 2023, the Moscow City Court placed Elena Blinovskaya under house arrest, the appeal was denied,” the message reads.
Blinovskaya will be placed under house arrest at her estate in Istra, near Moscow, until June 26. Blinovskaya herself did not come to the court session. His lawyer explained this by the poor health of the blogger.
Blinovskaya was detained on April 27 on suspicion of tax evasion and money laundering for 918 million rubles from 2019 to 2021. The Investigation Committee opened a criminal case.
“Getting income from entrepreneurial activities in the field of the Internet, services and the implementation of training courses, providing the media, including educational marathons, it was deliberately determined that Blinovskaya, unwilling to switch to a common taxation system. and officially splitting the business, as well as attracting unidentified persons to the implementation of the criminal plan,” he said.
Citing sources, the media wrote that the blogger was detained in the Smolensk region while trying to cross the border with Belarus. At the same time, he allegedly knew about the upcoming arrest and tried to confuse investigators – they found a ticket for a flight to Tashkent with Blinovskaya.
The investigation believes that Blinovskaya does not want to go through the simplified system of taxation for individual entrepreneurs, which means income up to 150 million rubles per year. To do this, She broke up her business—the money went into the accounts of 18 linked firms and three individual entrepreneurs. Law enforcement also reported that the blogger was able to legalize some of the unpaid taxes by buying a car for her husband, equipment and goods for her relatives’ companies.
Searches were made at the blogger’s Istra estate, showed premium cars in the SK garage, the total cost of which could exceed 100 million rubles. On May 15, the Investigative Committee filed a lawsuit against Alexei Blinovskaya’s husband – he was suspected of complicity in tax evasion and money laundering schemes.
The court banned Blinovskaya from using the Internet, sending her to house arrest. At the same time, new posts were published on the blogger’s personal pages on social networks and on the Telegram channel. On April 28, the day after her arrest, she recorded a story in which she said she was a law-abiding taxpayer.
On May 21, his channel aired a call for subscribers to help raise money for lawyers. “Now is not the easiest time for me. Every ruble counts, every word of support, for our connection and trust with you, I hope … ”the message said.
After a while, the post was deleted, and the blogger’s representatives reported that his Telegram was hacked for the second time since his arrest. Later, a new article was published on behalf of Blinovskaya saying that the bank blocked the specified card in order to collect money.
“I’m angry guys. I say hello to ill-wishers, the card that my assistant showed was blocked by the bank. I understand that at this period of my life I can not love everyone and not everyone is on my side, but I do not understand why they continue to test me and do such mischief, ”the blogger wrote.
Blinovskaya became the third well-known Russian blogger accused of tax evasion and business fragmentation. The first in March were Valeria “Lerchek” Chekalina and Alexander Mitroshin (recently lives in Dubai). In mid-May, information also appeared about the tax audit of the companies of the former host of the Eagle and Tails program, blogger and actress Anastasia Ivleeva.
Media and Telegram channels reported that the Federal Tax Service has created a special department to control well-known bloggers and media personalities, especially those engaged in the so-called information business. According to unconfirmed reports, there are at least 32 people on this list. Among them are Yegor Creed, Victoria Bonya, Hussein Gasanov, Instasamka and others.
On May 22, RIA Novosti, citing the Chekalins’ lawyer Konstantin Tretyakov, reported that the bloggers have fully repaid their tax debts in excess of 300 million rubles.
“As all accounts were arrested, money was borrowed for this and paid in full for 311 million, which resulted in criminal proceedings,” the lawyer said.
According to him, in such criminal cases there is always a dialogue between the prosecution and the investigation, and often voluntary repayment of the debt leads to the closure of the process. Now the Chekalins’ side is waiting for a reaction from law enforcement.