Furniture Scammer to Stand Trial in Urals for Fraud

In the Urals, the case of a furniture maker who drove an elderly woman to a suicide note has reached court. The businessman took nearly a million rubles (approximately $10,000 at current rates) from her for furniture manufacturing but never fulfilled the order.

We reported the story of 76-year-old Nina Nikolayevna from Verkhnyaya Pyshma. In 2023, she paid a large sum for furniture for her house, which she bought by selling her city apartment.

Her daughter Irina said that her elderly mother was so distressed by the situation that she left a note and went away from home. The daughter found her in a nearby forest. Nina Nikolayevna had worked honestly for 55 years in an X-ray laboratory and couldn«t understand how someone could take money and just disappear.

It turned out that the pensioner is not the only one left with nothing by Vyacheslav Volodkovich. He currently has 16 enforcement proceedings and debts of 9 million rubles (approximately $90,000 at current rates). These include banks that gave loans and ordinary citizens.

Nina Nikolayevna«s daughter turned to the police for help and with difficulty achieved the initiation of a criminal case, which for a long time had no suspect. Irina, knowing all the legal requirements, went from office to office of investigators and prosecutors but couldn»t achieve anything.

Law enforcement advised the women to deal with it themselves on how to make Volodkovich return the debt. For example, a deputy prosecutor recommended «carefully beat» — this literal quote is on an audio recording.

Besides Irina, a complaint to the police against the furniture maker was filed by Marina, director of a Yekaterinburg company. She made an advance payment for furniture for a local museum for the opening of an exhibition, which was a federal project. Their company made the payment, but Volodkovich stopped responding. The company had to urgently find a new subcontractor, and they ultimately lost the client.

In the end, thanks to Irina«s persistence, it was possible to transfer the criminal case to court: it was crucial for her that the businessman be held criminally responsible. She secured a meeting in Moscow, at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the deputy head of the investigative department, and the next day the furniture maker-scammer was charged. At the moment, the investigation has already been completed, and the prosecutor»s office has approved the indictment under parts 2 and 3 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for fraud on a large scale.

The pensioner«s case will be combined with the »museum order« case. Moreover, according to Irina, there is another victim of the businessman: a resident of Perm paid him 80 thousand rubles (about $800 at current rates) but was also left without furniture or money. He was denied the initiation of a criminal case. Irina will seek to have this episode included as well. Other customers refused to join the collective complaint, even though their orders were also not fulfilled. They still hope that Volodkovich will gradually return everything to them.

«He has nothing to return,» Irina is sure. «Over two years, he transferred me 45 thousand rubles (about $450 at current rates). Neither I nor my mother can wait until we»re 90 for him to return the entire debt. And no one will. We«ve said goodbye to this money, but a person shouldn»t just get away with it like that; achieving punishment under the law is a matter of principle. For me as a lawyer, the advice to «carefully beat» is savagery.«

Vyacheslav Volodkovich himself, in a conversation with E1.RU, explained that there was no intent to deceive. Allegedly, he was going through a difficult period: his mother was seriously ill, and all the customers« money went to her treatment and then to the funeral. He assured that he would gradually return everything.

We also reported how a businessman from Yekaterinburg, the owner of a large company, was accused of scamming former employees and customers for millions. The ex-manager is now filing for bankruptcy and teaching others how to do business.

One of his former employees even had all her cards blocked, the boss arranged a guarantee agreement in her name, and she is now responsible for the debts of his individual entrepreneurship. At the same time, the Yekaterinburg woman assures that the guarantee was arranged without her knowledge.