Moscow Trial of 'Lerchek' Bloggers: Life Changes Amid Pregnancy and Debt

In Moscow, the criminal case against blogger family Valeria and Artyom Chekalin has reached court. During the tax investigations, Lerchek (Valeria«s pseudonym) managed to build a career on TV, get divorced, end up in isolation under house arrest, and even… become pregnant by a new partner.

In this article, we tell what the infopreneurs with a multi-million audience got into trouble for, how their life changed with the initiation of the case, and whether they face real prison terms.

New pregnancy: what the Chekalins do and how they live

The other day, 33-year-old Lerchek first spoke about her pregnancy — the blogger came to court in a black dress that hugged her protruding belly. The girl shared her condition.

“I feel very nauseous, got carsick in the car,” said Valeria.

She also confirmed journalists» guesses: the father of the future child is her dance trainer from Argentina, Luis Squicciarini. He was also at the hearing and during breaks went to get coffee and food for his beloved.

Artyom Chekalin commented on the new “condition” of his ex-wife.

“I hear about her pregnancy for the first time. How do I feel? Children — always positive,” he briefly answered and hid from the cameras.

During the trial, the man surprisingly often went out to smoke: perhaps to avoid sitting in the company of his ex-wife and her new boyfriend, or due to worries about the case.

According to Chekalin, he sees his children regularly, despite being under house arrest. They live half the week with Lerchek in a private house, and the other half — with him.

Meanwhile, the family«s financial situation has seriously deteriorated during the investigation. A year ago, Valeria complained that during a search, all her money was seized, including funds set aside for the children.

“The only source of income — work online and filming on a federal channel. I started life from scratch. And all taxes are paid. And what was before, I don»t know. During the search, everything was taken, it was all the money for the children,” she said.

Now, Chekalina«s assistants and her mother have organized a sale of her luxury brand clothing. Among the lots — fancy dresses by Jacquemus, Loewe bags, and shoes by Louboutin and Valentino costing tens and hundreds of thousands of rubles (thousands of dollars at current rates).

“Our family is going through very difficult times. It pains me to see my daughter»s tears. As you understand, our financial situation is not very good either… My daughter«s items in good condition are looking for new owners,” Feopentova said in a video address.

In October, another misfortune happened in the family: the Chekalins« younger son — three-year-old Lev — was hospitalized.

“He was playing with his brother, there»s a long marble table in the hallway, he jumped on it, started falling from it, grabbed the edge and hit here,” explained the boy«s father, pointing to the chest area. — “He slightly tore his lung, and because of that, as the doctors later said, a pneumothorax formed. That»s when one lung compresses and presses on the other. His ex-wife took him from the house, there were traffic police officers, they took the child and drove him.”

Later, the grandmother, Valeria Chekalina«s mother, said that the child was fine, discharged from the hospital after recovery.

Artyom Chekalin, meanwhile, while in isolation, studies esoteric literature: at one of the recent court hearings, he shared with journalists that he reads books on numerology and rodology (family lineage studies). He also remembered the biography of the leader of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group, Sergei Butorin, nicknamed “Osya.”

“I»ll be trendy. When I get out, I«ll rake in the dough with a shovel just right,” joked Chekalin.

In mid-November, it became known that the 33-year-old blogger became pregnant with her fourth child while under house arrest. TV presenter Georgy Ivashchenko on the program “Dukhovka” (The Oven), citing Chekalina»s friends, reported that she has long been in a relationship with a tango dancer from Argentina, 37-year-old Luis Squicciarini.

How the Chekalins “amassed” millions

Valeria Feopentova — this is the blogger«s maiden name — and Artyom Chekalin met while studying at the Higher School of Business at Moscow State University (MSU) and married before graduation in 2012. Valeria kept a personal blog on Instagram (activity banned in Russia), not planning to earn from it.

Artyom was already then the general director of the firm “Valar plus,” whose main activity was listed as warehousing services. He was also a co-owner of the brokerage firm “BrokBestService,” and then switched to the customs business.

In 2016, the couple had twins, and Valeria started actively blogging, attracting an audience. In 2018, the bloggers opened the company “Be Fit” and registered the makeup brand Letique Cosmetics. Along with the number of subscribers, the family«s income grew — in 2023, the company»s revenue amounted to 1 billion rubles (about $10 million at current rates).

The spouses distributed shares in the company equally — 37.5% each, another 25% went to business partner Roman Vishnyak. Besides the firm “Be Fit,” two more companies are linked to the cosmetics brand: “Letik Makeup” and “Ecoflow.” They are owned by Artyom Chekalin (70% of the firm) and Roman Vishnyak (30%).

Besides cosmetics, the girl sold marathons on creating an “ideal body,” as well as “money mindset.” Some called these courses a “scam,” while others said the program changed their consciousness and the world around them.

The cost of programs ranged from 2,590 to 4,090 rubles (about $30 to $50 at current rates), and participants were promised various prizes: half a million rubles (about $5,000), iPhone 15, an Audi A3 car, and others. The marathon websites were registered under the individual entrepreneur status of Artyom and Valeria Chekalin.

They fell under the Blinovskaya article but came out unscathed

The Chekalins« troubles began back in 2023. Then, two cases were opened against the bloggers: one for tax evasion, the second — for money laundering.

The Federal Tax Service of Russia (FTS) missed more than 300 million rubles (about $3 million at current rates), because the couple used a simplified taxation system. On the day of the searches in the bloggers» mansion, they found expensive cars, Russian and U.S. passports (the Chekalins« younger son was born in Miami), and also eight kilograms of pure gold of 999 fineness.

After the trials, the bloggers repented and stated that a mistake had occurred, and also paid off multi-million debts.

“The last three or four years we were in constant sales, development, projects, constant filming. <…> It turned out that so-called ‘Lerchek schemes’ were used. Accordingly, our tax was calculated incorrectly: instead of 35%, it came out to 6%,” said Valeria Chekalina.

Soon, all this was forgotten. In spring 2024, the spouses amicably parted ways, and Valeria began actively developing her career on television.

She participated in various shows on federal channels, gave interviews, and even appeared at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2024) as an invited celebrity.

During this period, the girl was discussed in all social news due to a scandal: in the program “Stars in the Jungle” (16+), she was spotted in the arms of married rapper Natan.

Artyom Chekalin also appeared in public with a new passion. However, now there is no trace of the romance with the blogger in her social networks. Among other things, Artemchek (the pseudonym Chekalin chose for himself) started traveling to front-line areas and sending humanitarian aid to the special military operation (SVO).

Despite the divorce, the Chekalins continued to run business together and earn online. This led them to the dock. For the second time.

New case: what the bloggers are accused of

Law enforcement officers again visited Lerchek«s home and offices in October 2024. This time, the detention was accompanied by a “mask show”: the door to Artyom Chekalin»s apartment was broken down with a sledgehammer by operatives in bulletproof vests, and then the blogger in home shorts was laid face down on the floor, with shouts demanding to hand over all flash drives and computers.

The ex-spouses met at confrontations, and later in court. Now everything was more serious: the bloggers were brought in under escort and seated behind bars, and the investigation demanded house arrest for them.

There, on the dock in the Troitsky Court of Moscow, the public first saw another defendant in the case — the bloggers« business partner Roman Vishnyak. Until then, he had been in the shadows and did not maintain public pages on social networks. As it turned out, Vishnyak was a co-founder of several Chekalin companies at once.

Moreover, Vishnyak likely participated not only in the Chekalins« cosmetics business but also in the sale of “marathons.” At least, these earnings formed the basis of the new charges.

According to the investigation, in 2021–2022, the Chekalins transferred money obtained from the sale of the fitness course “Ideal Body” to the account of a foreign firm E-Fitness, opened in Dubai. The recipient of the funds was listed as Lerchek fit abu dhabi, reported Kommersant. In total, 251.6 million rubles (about $2.5 million at current rates) were transferred to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

As the indictment states, the bloggers did not notify tax authorities about opening a foreign account, and the transaction was conducted using forged documents and оформляли as purchase of an information product. The investigation considers Artyom Chekalin the organizer of the scheme.

They were charged with illegally transferring money abroad on a particularly large scale by an organized group (clause “a”, “b” part 3 article 193.1 of the Russian Criminal Code). The maximum punishment under this article provides for up to 10 years in a colony.

A year under arrest in a Moscow region mansion

At the time of the initiation of the first criminal case in 2023, the Chekalins lived in a townhouse on the territory of the elite village Ilyinka in Krasnogorsk. They bought the house at the end of 2021 and renovated it, but after the detention they moved out. And the 400 sq. meter cottage was decided to be sold. Lerchek explained this not by debts, but by unpleasant memories.

This is not the only housing of the Chekalin family. They owned four apartments in Moscow and two in their native Tolyatti. In the capital, they have a 72-square-meter apartment in the Zilart residential complex, a 150-square-meter one on Serpukhovskiy Val Street, as well as two apartments with areas of 83 and 38 sq. m on Dekabristov Street, wrote Life. In Tolyatti, the spouses own apartments of 200 and 94 square meters.

Since then, the blogger lived with the children in a rented house in the Moscow region«s Istra — its interiors were captured in footage from operational filming during the second searches. In court, the girl stated that she received permission from the owner to serve house arrest in this cottage.

Meanwhile, after six months of investigation, Chekalina»s mother — Lerchek herself is banned from running social networks — told followers about the family«s dire situation. According to Elvira Feopentova, the girl now lives for free at a friend»s — in a mansion with an area of 1,500 square meters with a pool.

It«s about a house in the elite village “Millennium Park.” In return, Valeria pays for utilities and shows the mansion to potential buyers.

“You know that after the divorce, my daughter moved to rented housing. This house is up for sale. It»s convenient for the owners that we look after the house, keep it in order and clean, care for the landscape and plants. We show it to buyers,” shared the blogger«s mother.

Among other things, before the criminal cases and divorce, the Chekalins were building a dream house in the elite village Agalarov Estate (also in Istra), which they themselves compared to a shopping center. Its construction was estimated at a billion rubles (about $10 million at current rates).

The cottage itself in a modern style remained unfinished. It is unknown whether the Chekalins managed to sell it before the arrest of property and accounts — this happened in January 2025 by court decision.

“At the moment, construction is suspended because funds are needed, I won«t hide it. Probably, another 500–600 million rubles (about $5–6 million at current rates) need to be invested. There»s 1,800 sq. m. Practically a shopping center. It was just a dream house,” admitted the blogger.

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The day before in Moscow, they bid farewell to famous blogger Irina Nebogaya, who fought cancer for five years. Close ones of the 21-year-old girl told MSK1.RU and StarHit correspondents how she spent her last minutes.