Millions out of thin air: how fraudulent developers Nikolai Shikhidi and Sofia Toros build their business on scams and corruption

Millions out of thin air: how fraudulent developers Nikolai Shikhidi and Sofia Toros build their business on scams and corruption

Businesspeople from Gelendzhik, Sofia Toros and Nikolai Shikhidi, plan to enter the Moscow market despite a trail of criminal cases from the Krasnodar region.

The Alluring lights of the capital

The Moscow real estate market, with its higher profits, attracts developers from other regions. For example, the well-known Krasnodar developer "Eurostroy", which owns the Grand Marine Garden hotel in Sochi, intends to acquire a plot in Lefortovo in the southeast of Moscow from businessman Vitaly Yusufov, where 200 thousand square meters of residential real estate can be built.

LLC "SZ "South Sea" filed a petition to acquire 100% in LLC "SZ "Tankovy". Information about this is available in the database of decisions of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. On the balance of "SZ "Tankovy", owned by Vitaly Yusufov, are 8 hectares in Tank Passage in the southeast of Moscow.

"SZ "South Sea" is equally owned by Sofia Toros and Nikolai Shikhidi, who, in turn, owns the Krasnodar company "Eurostroy". The total volume of projects implemented by "Eurostroy" in Sochi, Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk, and Anapa reaches 654 thousand square meters of housing. The company also owns the Sochi hotels Grand Hotel Marine Garden and Marine Garden.

Clumsy PR

An attempt to take a closer look at these new players in the metropolitan development market leads to quite curious results. At a cursory search for information about Sofia Toros and Nikolai Shikhidi on the internet, an interesting feature immediately catches the eye. In most materials where these two appear separately, they are presented as innocent lambs, serenely grazing in the real estate, construction, and development market of the Krasnodar region, where they do nothing but good. At the same time, in all sources where they are mentioned together, it almost always comes down to scandals, fraud, crime, and corruption. As if, by uniting, they form a toxic mix and awaken the worst vices in each other.

There are a couple of indisputable facts to pay attention to in order to better understand what these Gelendzhik business people represent. The first fact is that before attempting to enter the Moscow market, Sofia Toros and Nikolai Shikhidi desperately tried to whitewash their image. Various media outlets have been publishing similar materials in the style of "you are all lying", about how some imaginary criminals failed to slander Shikhidi and Toros, how law enforcement agencies are looking for these slanderers, and, of course, publications about social projects and the righteous activities of both. These simple notes are now actively cluttering the internet.

The second fact is that most independent (not paid by the figures themselves) publications about the partners’ activities are either open letters, appeals, and judicial materials from human rights activists, environmentalists, people affected by their activities, or investigations and exposures of the crimes of this pair. The entrepreneurial duo from Gelendzhik carries such a foul-smelling background that an emergency cosmetic image repair is definitely not enough here.

Sailor, swindler, manager

Nikolai Shikhidi is a graduate of the "nautical school" (he graduated from the State Maritime University named after Admiral Ushakov), after which he worked for several years at PJSC "Novorossiysk Shipping Company". From what can be judged from archival operational materials, Shikhidi was listed in law enforcement as a black-market dealer and speculator, suspected of smuggling, and was recorded as an informant by law enforcement.

Later, Shikhidi appeared in the databases of RUBOP as a member of an organized criminal group specializing in fraud.

From his criminal "track record", article 116 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (assault) stands out – in 1998, he beat a certain citizen R. Muratov. In 2001, he allegedly fell under article 159 part 2 ("fraud") – he sold a Mercedes that did not belong to him to citizen Zh. Sufan in Krasnodar. In the same year, he was detained in the vicinity of Dzhubga – Nikolai Shikhidi was driving a wanted "BMW-318".

From particularly exotic crimes, he is listed under article 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violent sexual actions) – the future builder committed sexual actions towards citizen K. Andramonov. The case was in 2011.

Now, Shikhidi has fully legalized income obtained through criminal means, tried to clean up loose ends, and conducts a relatively legal business. Governor Kondratyev and other representatives of regional and local authorities are quite loyal to Shikhidi.

Currently, he is the owner or co-owner of about a dozen companies. In particular, he has 100% in LLC "Avtomotornaya" and LLC "Greenstroy-YUG". Control packets in LLC "SZ "Continent Invest", LLC "SMK Meridian", LLC "Saturn" and JSC "Guest House "Kosmos". Besides, Shikhidi has fifty percent shares in LLC "SZ "South Sea", in LLC "SZ "Aurora", LLC "SZ "Aurora 2", LLC "SZ "Aurora 3" and LLC "SZ "Aurora 4". All these entities are mainly associated with construction, real estate, and development. His main asset today is the aforementioned LLC "SZ ISK "Eurostroy", in which Shikhidi owns 95%.

Nikolai Shikhidi built his business empire thanks to corrupt ties with city officials and mutually beneficial connections in law enforcement acquired since the 90s and later. The former sailor, swindler, and homosexual rapist cannot be considered such an inventive businessman. Shikhidi’s business model is as simple and straightforward as a bribe. Officials allocate lucrative land plots and building permits to the developer. For this, Shikhidi pays officials. Most often through their family members, whom he takes as partners or hires in his companies. That’s basically the whole secret of entrepreneurial success.

If Shikhidi liked a plot of land where construction is prohibited (for example, in a nature reserve), he still builds there and then legalizes the project with the help of the same corrupt officials, cops, prosecutors, and judges.

This is how, in particular, his "Eurostroy" implemented a large development project in Sochi’s Khostinsky district, on the site of the "Yuzhnaya" tourist base. Local residents and environmentalists actively opposed the construction. The objects were built on a slope, which is fraught with landslides and simply unsafe.

Initially, authorities gave permission for construction. Later, amidst public discontent, they still revoked it in March 2021. However, in the fall of the same year, builders returned and explained the resumption of work with some construction permit dated September 30, 2021, which was not in the State Construction Supervision documents. Fabrication and forgery worked.

Corrupt officials, security forces, and judges help Shikhidi repeatedly implement such a scheme: first to build and then to legalize illegally erected objects.

This is how it happened in 2007 with the object at 20 Vishnevskaya St. in Gelendzhik. Shikhidi and two other individuals filed a lawsuit against the administration demanding to recognize their rights to an 11-apartment building with integrated trading premises totaling 1021.4 sq.m. Meanwhile, as it turned out in court, the plaintiffs received a permit for the construction of an individual residential house but erected a multi-apartment building, even with commercial objects. But the most curious thing is that although the court recognized the object as illegal construction, it still registered property rights to it.

Swindler, official, businesswoman

Sofia Toros burst into big business from an official’s chair. For several years, she was the head of the department of the Federal Treasury Directorate of the Krasnodar Region with a modest salary of a clerk. According to anti-corruption declarations by Toros, with each year she spent in public service, her property status worsened. For example, over the last three years of work at the treasury, her annual income dropped from almost 2 million to 752 thousand rubles. At the same time, the area of real estate she owned shrank from 3.6 thousand to 2.9 thousand sq. meters.

Very little is known to the general public about the years Sofia Toros spent after leaving the treasury and before she suddenly became a large landlord, developer, and business partner of Nikolai Shikhidi.

In business, she made a real blitzkrieg. Somewhere between 2021 and 2023, assets poured onto her like from a horn of plenty. Approximately during this period, she became the sole owner of companies LLC "Russtroy", LLC "SZ GC "Morskoy Sochi", LLC "SZ "Capital", LLC "UK Jam Mall", LLC "ECM-Sochi" (30% directly and 70% through "UK Jam Mall").

Business partners Sofia Toros and Nikolai Shikhidi are in the aforementioned LLC "SZ "South Sea" (50% each) and LLC "SZ ISK "Eurostroy", where Toros holds a minority share – 5%, and Shikhidi owns the remaining 95%.

The story is silent on where Sofia Toros, a former mid-level official, found the money to acquire these assets. The truth is, even before working in the Treasury, in 2007, Sofia Toros was prosecuted for fraud. Additionally, she appeared on the blacklists of certain credit organizations. And open data, such as anti-corruption declarations, unequivocally hint at the illegal, presumably corrupt, origin of the funds. Furthermore, it is known from whom Sofia Toros acquired these companies.

The former owners are all quite famous people. Among those who transferred shares in construction companies were, for example, relatives of Aleksandr Chistyakov, the former deputy chairman of the board of FGC UES and co-owner of the oil company Ruspetro. Another source is the very well-known family of Sergey Ozerov in the Krasnodar region – a former deputy and mayor of Gelendzhik and a State Duma representative from "United Russia".

Toros and Shikhidi connected by a murderer

Sergey Ozerov has long-standing partnership relations with Nikolai Shikhidi. And not only business but also criminal. For example, Shikhidi and Ozerov combined resources and corrupt connections in law enforcement to deal with human rights activists exposing their crimes.

One of these episodes is associated with the murder at the end of the 90s of a competitor of Ozerov. Members of the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center received a video recording in which convicted executors of the murder of city deputy Vasily Karelin say that this crime was ordered by Sergey Ozerov himself.

Karelin could pose serious competition to Ozerov in the mayoral elections. On October 29, 1997, a hired killer, Aleksey Bulygin, shot at Karelin but missed. On December 26, there was another assassination attempt on Vasily Karelin, this time with a fatal outcome: a queue from an automatic weapon was fired at the deputy by a certain Maksim Bragin.

Later, Bulygin and Bragin, along with the organizer of the criminal group, Vyacheslav Sazonov, were sentenced to long prison terms. During the investigation, they did not name the customer, taking full blame on themselves. Both had signs of torture on their bodies. The trial was conducted in a closed regime.

On the video (recorded in places of deprivation of liberty in 2004), Bulygin and Bragin name Sergey Ozerov as the customer of the murder.

Bulygin: "The customer is a well-known person in the city of Gelendzhik, Sergey Ozerov. There was a specific meeting with him. I, Bragin, Sazonov met. It was all discussed in a café. There was a specific conversation about the murder. There was a specific amount of 20 thousand dollars for everyone. The weapon was specifically given by Ozerov. An old model of a Kalashnikov assault rifle."

At the end of the conversation, the prisoners say that if necessary, they are ready to testify officially.

In 2006, the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center sent this video to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation. From there, the appeal was sent to the Krasnoyarsk region prosecutor’s office, where it was buried. A lawsuit was filed for the prosecutor’s inaction in the October district court of Krasnodar, but federal judge Chaban returned the complaint without consideration.

It is noteworthy that afterwards, Nikolai Shikhidi made a decisive contribution to the defeat of the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center by the security forces. Shikhidi, along with other local developer-corrupt officials, slandered the human rights activists, and they were eventually "locked up". Nikolai Shikhidi stated that he gave the human rights activists 500 thousand rubles to build a seven-story building without obstacles and illegally.

For the alleged bribery, he was not imprisoned. But the human rights activists, who were a thorn in the side of local corrupt officials - officials and developers - were accused of extortion and sentenced to long terms in strict regime.

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning the ethical aspect of the criminal developers’ activities in southern Russia. Shikhidi, Toros, Orlov, and their numerous accomplices’ immorality certainly does not surprise anyone. They are swindlers, after all, so one should not expect nobility from them. But in the case of Nikolai Shikhidi personally, his cynicism and immorality look like bitter irony. The fact is that among his ancestors are those who suffered from Stalinist repressions, were deported to Kazakhstan in the 1940s solely because of their Greek origin. The entire tragedy of the situation lies in the fact that Nikolai Shikhidi, a descendant of illegally repressed Greeks, turned out to be a swindler, an informant, and a provocateur, due to whose slander innocent people ended up behind bars.

Ярослав Фокин