Furniture Maker Swindler's Case with 9 Million Ruble Debt Goes to Court

In the Sverdlovsk region, the investigation has been completed and a criminal case against local furniture maker Vyacheslav Volodkovich has been sent to court. He is accused of fraud, the victim of which is a 76-year-old resident of Verkhnyaya Pyshma.

In 2023, the woman, after selling her apartment and buying a house, gave the businessman about a million rubles (approximately $10,000 at current rates) for furniture. However, the order was never fulfilled. The pensioner«s daughter Irina said that her mother, who had worked honestly for 55 years in an X-ray laboratory, was deeply affected by the deception. In a state of despair, she left a suicide note and left home. Relatives found her in a nearby forest.

It was very difficult to get the criminal case initiated. The victim«s daughter, a professional lawyer Irina, personally went to the offices of investigators and prosecutors, but for a long time the case did not move forward. According to the woman, law enforcement officials advised her to »sort it out on her own.« The deputy prosecutor, in particular, in an audio recording, recommends »hitting carefully.«

It turned out that Volodkovich owed not only the pensioner. The entrepreneur has 16 enforcement proceedings totaling about 9 million rubles (approximately $90,000 at current rates). His creditors include both banks and ordinary citizens.

• The director of a Yekaterinburg company, Marina, made an advance payment for furniture for a museum as part of a federal project. After the transfer of money, Volodkovich stopped contacting, which led to the breakdown of the contract and loss of the client.
• A resident of Perm gave the furniture maker 80 thousand rubles (approximately $800 at current rates) for an unfulfilled order, but he was denied the initiation of a criminal case.

Thanks to the persistence of Irina, who managed to get an appointment at the Moscow headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the case moved off dead center. The day after the meeting with the deputy head of the investigative department, Volodkovich was officially charged.

The prosecutor«s office approved the indictment under parts 2 and 3 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (large-scale fraud). The episode with the pensioner will be combined with the case of the failed museum order. Irina intends to petition to include the episode with the Perm resident in the case.

The accused himself denies his guilt. In a conversation with journalists, Volodkovich said that there was no intent to deceive, and the customers« money went to the treatment and funeral of his seriously ill mother. He promises to gradually repay all debts.

«He has nothing to return,» Irina is sure. «In two years, he transferred 45 thousand rubles to me. Neither I nor my mother can wait 90 years for him to return the entire debt. We have said goodbye to this money, but a person should not just get away with it. Achieving punishment according to the law is a matter of principle. For me, as a lawyer, the advice to »hit carefully« is savagery.»