In the fall of 1967, when the whole country was preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, the BHSS Administration of the Moscow Region received, as they said, a signal from an unknown citizen. In his statement, an anonymous well-wisher reported that Comrade Voshila, the head of the warehouse of industrial goods of the Trade Directorate of the Moscow Oblast Executive Committee, clearly does not live on his labor salary, and asked the competent authorities to take a closer look at this character.
Not constrained in funds
They did not attach much importance to the anonymous letter: there were a lot of such signals in those years. Therefore, Nikita Petrov, a young operative who had just joined the OBKHSS, was instructed to check the information. Then no one could have thought that checking an ordinary anonymous letter would lead the detectives to a whole gang of fraudsters operating in retail chains and industrial enterprises in Moscow and the Moscow region!
A quick development showed that Voshila really does not need money as a warehouse manager: he regularly spends large sums in restaurants, every year he goes to improve his health in the best health resorts in the country. And recently he bought and luxuriously furnished a cooperative apartment for his partner. Voshila is clearly involved in some kind of fraud! Trivial theft of finished products from the warehouse was immediately dismissed by the operatives: a check of the documentation showed that everything was in order with the accounting department in the warehouse. And the official audits carried out on a regular basis did not reveal any serious violations either. Then a secret surveillance was established for Voshila. And it soon became clear that the warehouse manager was actively looking for reliable sales workers, through whom, obviously, he intends to sell unaccounted products from the warehouse. And the operatives learnedthat Voshila had got hold of trade labels of famous Moscow department stores somewhere. Doubts finally disappeared: the warehouse manager was a large-caliber swindler. And they took Voshila seriously.
A lot of marriage
They decided not to rush to the arrest. First, it was required to establish the criminal connections of the manager. The operatives found out which enterprises supply finished products to the warehouse and which stores these goods go to. There were two main suppliers: the Podolsk haberdashery factory and the Ukhtomsk metalware plant. Vinyl raincoats and polyethylene tablecloths came from Podolsk to Voshila's warehouse, and from the workshops of the Ukhtomsk plant - straps for ladies' watches and tie clips. In the 1960s, these products were extremely popular.
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It was clear that an enterprising warehouse manager was driving unaccounted products to the left, but the mechanism of scams still eluded the operatives' understanding. How he does it? And then Petrov noticed that, judging by the documents, every time after the goods arrive at the warehouse, some of the raincoats and tablecloths return to the factory under the guise of marriage. It only remained to check whether Podolsk was actually accepting the "defective" raincoats and tablecloths back.
The detectives carefully questioned the workers of the haberdashery factory and learned that the cloaks and tablecloths were accompanied to the warehouse to Voshila by the forwarder Pamsheva. And she goes - and there and back - on the same truck: new goods are transported to Moscow, and defective products to Podolsk.
Then, having found out the days of dispatch of the finished product, the operatives examined the truck three times when it was returning to Podolsk. In order not to arouse suspicions among fraudsters, all checks were carried out at the traffic police posts. Of course, no defective raincoats and tablecloths were found in the car. Whereas in the accounting documents they appeared.
But even now it was impossible to make an arrest. Investigators did not know who Voshila was connected with at the factory and how the criminals operating there were hiding their ends in the water. After all, the unreturned goods should have created a shortage at the enterprise itself. And according to the factory documents, it was not observed.
Three and five
Meanwhile, other OBKhSS employees dealt with watch straps that came to the warehouse from the workshops of the Ukhtomsk Metalware Plant. For a long time, the detectives could not figure out where the "unaccounted for" comes from if, according to the documents, everything fits together. And then one of the operatives drew attention to one curious nuance. On the locks of the straps coming from the factory, the OTK stamp with the number 3. However, on some straps sold in the stores of Zagorsk (now Sergiev Posad) and Dolgoprudny, for some reason, the number 5 flaunted. They began to find out what was the matter. It turned out that these straps were made at the branch of the Ukhtomsk plant, in Malakhovka. And they were made a long time ago! By the time of the investigation, the plant in the Moscow Region had been out of work for a year: it was closed due to low profitability. It turned outthat at one time part of the finished products of the branch was hidden from the account and now they were thrown into the distribution network in small batches.
First violin
The OBKhSS employees realized that without a wide circle of accomplices and high-ranking patrons, Voshila could not pull off such machinations. And then, as if in confirmation of this conclusion, external surveillance recorded a meeting of the warehouse manager with the commercial director of the Podolsk haberdashery factory Raskin, which took place in one of the capital's restaurants. Judging by the way the companions behaved, it was not the first time that they had a boon. Outside even photographed the moment when Ruskin handed Voshila a suitcase with haberdashery goods - for subsequent sale in the retail network. And after a while, left-hand tablecloths and raincoats were found in several stores of Rosgalantereytorg.
Further investigation established that Ruskin played the first violin in this criminal orchestra. It was he who invented the criminal scheme. When the factory received invoices stating that part of the products had been returned due to defects, Raskin gave the command to increase the production of raincoats and tablecloths - exactly the amount that was on the invoices. Therefore, the operatives for so long could not understand how the factory manages to maintain a balance, regularly fulfill the plan and not raise unnecessary questions from higher authorities.
When the evidence was collected, arrests and searches began. Louse was caught red-handed when, together with the driver Maximov, he was taking out another batch of left-handed products from the warehouse for sale to the retail network.
Good money
It turned out that you can make good money on a simple haberdashery. Polyethylene tablecloths sold for 2 rubles apiece, watchbands for 80 kopecks, and tie clips for a ruble. And one PVC raincoat in stores cost 10 rubles. And the bill for these unaccounted goods went to the hundreds and thousands. For example, in May 1967, Ruskin and Voshila pushed 100 raincoats and 300 tablecloths to the left, earning 1,600 rubles on the deal. In June of the same year, Voshila received 900 watch straps and 336 tie clips from the senior master of the Ukhtomsk plant. Of course, not accounted for anywhere. And there are dozens of such episodes.
During the searches, over 4,000 rubles of cash and valuables worth almost 11,000 rubles were seized from members of the criminal group. And besides, stolen goods worth 6,000 rubles.
Nikita Petrov received a prize for this case: 35 rubles clean. For this amount, one could buy three raincoats and modestly wash the update. But the OBKhSS employees were not spoiled people …
Satisfied with Soviet power
In Soviet times, even children knew how the abbreviation OBKHSS stands for: the department for combating theft of socialist property. The anecdote popular in those years explains a lot. Two friends are talking: “Something has not been seen for a long time. Where do you work? - In the KGB. - And what are you doing there? - We are dealing with those who are dissatisfied with the Soviet regime. - And what, there are also satisfied? - Yes, but OBKhSS deals with them. The legendary police special service investigated economic crimes …
Magazine: All the riddles of the world №24. Author: Arseniy Zamostiano