Samara Court Sentences Scandalous Construction Top Managers

Sovetsky District Court of Samara finished considering the criminal case against representatives of Bolverk LLC. Sergey Shipitsin, Sergey Petrukhin, and Vitaly Danilov were found guilty of fraud.

The construction company gained notoriety several years ago. At that time, representatives of the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) published a video of the arrest of Bolverk representatives. It is known that searches and arrests took place in St. Petersburg, Samara, Kaliningrad, and Moscow.

The legal problems of the company«s top managers were related to the construction of an international maritime terminal for cruise and cargo-passenger ships. Moreover, Bolverk was implementing the project not in its home region, but in the town of Pionersky, Kaliningrad Oblast.

The company«s beneficiary Sergey Shipitsin, former general director Sergey Petrukhin, deputy general director Vitaly Danilov, and ex-financial director Yevgenia Frid came under close scrutiny from law enforcement. During the preliminary investigation, the latter managed to flee Russia. She is presumably in Israel. The suspect was put on the international wanted list.

According to investigators, in December 2017, Bolverk signed a contract with Rosmorport worth 7.4 billion rubles ($74 million at current rates). The contractor received an advance of 3.6 billion rubles ($36 million at current rates).

By December 2019, as investigators found, the actual readiness of the facility was only 27%. By that time, the contractor had completed work worth 2 billion rubles ($20 million at current rates).

«Thus, the expenditure of more than 1.6 billion rubles ($16 million at current rates) is not confirmed. Investigators established that Bolverk directed the money received from Rosmorport to the accounts of four affiliated organizations. Part of the amount was transferred to shell companies registered in Samara Oblast. Some of them are organized groups (platforms) whose goal is supposedly to cash out money,» the ICR stated.

The investigation into the high-profile criminal case took several years. A little later, there was a delay related to the choice of court where the materials were to be examined. Ultimately, the choice fell on the Sovetsky District Court of Samara. Representatives of the court supplemented the narrative of the criminal case previously stated by investigators.

«The defendants, by concluding fictitious deals, removed from the control of FSUE Rosmorport and stole funds in the amount of 1,125,084,738.45 rubles ($11,250,800 at current rates). In addition, by misleading the property owner regarding the quality of purchased goods, they supplied used materials to the construction site, causing damage in the amount of 12,572,631 rubles ($125,700 at current rates). Representatives of Bolverk provided the victim with false information about the volume of completed general construction work, which led to the theft of another 870,631.20 rubles ($8,700 at current rates),» the joint press service of courts of Samara Oblast said.

Thus, the total amount of damage amounted to 1.1 billion rubles ($11 million at current rates).

In mid-July 2026, three of the four defendants heard their sentences. Sergey Shipitsin was sentenced to seven years in a general-regime penal colony. Sergey Petrukhin received five years in a general-regime penal colony. Vitaly Danilov compensated for the damage caused by the fraud, and was therefore sentenced to 3.5 years in prison suspended.

Bolverk«s «black streak» does not end here. In the summer of 2022, it became known that the company»s former director came under scrutiny over possible tax fraud.

At the same time, the company has been going through bankruptcy proceedings for several years. It began back in 2020. In early 2026, former top managers of Bolverk were brought to subsidiary liability. Sergey Shipitsin and Yevgenia Frid were demanded to pay 3.8 billion rubles ($38 million at current rates).