The decision to confiscate property from the ex-head of the Stavropol Traffic Police has been canceled

The court overturned the decision to confiscate the property of the former head of the traffic police department in the Stavropol region, Alexey Safonov, and his family members, with a total value of more than 180 million rubles. In 2021, Safonov was arrested for taking bribes and creating a criminal community.

During the investigation, at least 22 real estate objects were found in his possession – including a house with a luxurious interior (in which, for example, there was a bathroom with gold plumbing). Safonov’s common-law wife Alena Psel planned to seize 82 million rubles worth of property for the benefit of the state, and almost 70 million rubles from his ex-wife’s mother. Last August, the court in Stavropol satisfied the prosecution’s claim.

Now this decision has been canceled, the formal reason is the incorrect application of substantive law. The details are still unknown, the case will be sent for a new review.

Earlier, Safonov’s defense claimed that all of his property was bought with legitimate income. At the same time, the prosecutor’s office stated that the income of all defendants in the case during Safonov’s 11 years of service and three more years before his appointment amounted to only about 19 million rubles.

• Together with Safonov, six members of the group led by him were detained, including the former head of the Department of the State Traffic Police for the Stavropol Region, Alexander Arzhanukhin, the department’s inspector Vitaly Melchikov, and four civilians.
• According to the investigation, for several years passes were illegally produced, which in exchange for bribes were distributed to persons carrying out transportation in the territory of the Stavropol Territory, which allowed them to circumvent the requirements of the law. In December of last year, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, said that 119 new episodes of bribery had appeared in the case.
• Since 2021, a number of regional and city officials have been held accountable for corruption crimes in Stavropol. Among them are the former head of Mineralnyh Vody Sergey Pertsev, the former mayor of Pyatigorsk Lev Travnev, the head of the regional administration of Rosymuschestvo Alexander Kovalev, two former deputy chairmen of the regional government – Roman Petrashov and Alexander Zolotarev, the former minister of housing and communal services Roman Marchenko, the former minister of economy Valery Syzov.