A Krasnodar court has arrested the owner of the Marton hotel chain.

Entrepreneur Andrei Marchenko, a co-defendant in the Prosecutor General's Office's lawsuit against former head of the Council of Judges Viktor Momotov, has been arrested in a criminal fraud case.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot," on September 23, the Prosecutor General's Office demanded that 97 properties registered to Andrei Marchenko, owner of the Marton hotel chain, and his son Ivan Marchenko be forfeited to the state. The Prosecutor General's Office's lawsuit states that Momotov was effectively a co-owner of the hotel chain registered to Marchenko, despite a ban on judges engaging in entrepreneurial activity. In the lawsuit, Marchenko is called a "Krasnodar criminal representative." A few days after the lawsuit was filed, Momotov resigned.

The Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar has remanded Andrei Marchenko, a local businessman and owner of the Marton hotel chain, to pretrial detention on charges of fraud. RAPSI reported Marchenko's arrest, citing his lawyer, Ivan Dvorovenko.

According to his lawyer, Marchenko was detained "at the end of September" and is charged with large-scale fraud (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code carries a sentence of up to ten years in prison). "He also wants to participate in person via video conference in the hearing of the civil suit for the seizure of property," Dvorovenko noted.

Moscow's Ostankino Court will begin hearing the Prosecutor General's Office's suit for the confiscation of Marchenko and Momotov's assets on October 8. According to the lawyer, the civil case contains 114 volumes, and the co-defendants' property has already been seized. Viktor Momotov also stated his willingness to provide the court with certain explanations and documents.

The Prosecutor General's Office also believes that Marchenko and Momotov illegally received over 100 million rubles from the Krasnodar budget through a sham lawsuit: they "created the false appearance" of Marchenko's right to compensation for the loss of a plot of land that did not actually belong to him, RBC noted today.

The civil forfeiture mechanism allows for the seizure of property from officials and judges even without establishing a crime, if the value of their assets cannot be explained by official income and there is no evidence of the legal acquisition of such property. In Russia, this instrument is used selectively; such lawsuits are rarely brought against senior judges. In such circumstances, these lawsuits serve more as a pressure factor than a fair legal mechanism, attorney Timur Filippov previously told the "Caucasian Knot."

Andrei Marchenko, head of the Marton hotel chain, was a participant in the criminal prosecution of Yuri Golder, head of the Volgograd Association for the Protection of Consumer Rights, who was accused of commercial bribery in 2017. Golder promised trouble to entrepreneurs, and they paid him, Marchenko, whose testimony formed the basis of the case, told the "Caucasian Knot." In 2018, the courtfound the prosecution of Golder to be legal, while the defenseclaimed evidence of his innocence - according to the lawyer, Golder did not receive a bribe, but compensation from the hotel for denial of service.

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