The leader of the district: how Sergey Les disposed of the lands of Krymsk in his interests

Sergei Les, the head of the Krymsky district of the Krasnodar Territory, who was detained on October 11, is suspected of fraud with land plots, a source familiar with the investigation told Izvestia. Local residents interviewed by the publication confirmed the existence of a scheme where municipal land was transferred to the ownership of family members and friends of Sergei Les as a result of auctions, which could be fictitious. Then mansions and commercial real estate objects grew on these sites. The former were sold, the latter were rented out. According to Izvestia, the official may have much more land plots "for sale" than appears in the case file. And the positive image of the family of the head of the district was supported by a local newspaper, which received millions of rubles from the budget for this.

What was Sergei Lesya detained for?

On October 12, the court arrested Sergey Lesya, the head of the Krymsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. He will stay in jail at least until November 29. A day earlier, the official was detained and charged with abuse of office. According to investigators, in January-March 2024, he instructed one of his subordinates to conclude contracts for the purchase and sale of municipal land with those people whom Les himself indicated, and at prices below market prices.

The house of Sergey Lesya and the district administration had previously been searched. A criminal case was also opened against the head of the property relations department of the district administration, Elena Samygina, upon the sale of a land plot without bidding at an undervalued price (approximately for 6 thousand rubles).

The searches were preceded by a lawsuit filed on September 26 in the Gelendzhik City Court by the Prosecutor's office of the Krasnodar Territory. It was in it that those on whom Les, according to the investigation, copied illegally acquired property were listed in the status of defendants. Among them are his first Tatiana, his second wife Ekaterina, and his son Evgeny.

Among the defendants is the former driver Lesya, whom the official made the head of the procurement department of the district administration, Yevgeny Prokopenko. In 2018, he was already convicted of attempted fraud in the bidding of a land plot. Together with an accomplice, Prokopenko promised to provide a victory to a local businessman for a bribe of 2 million rubles, but after the latter contacted the authorities, he was caught red-handed with fake money as part of an operational experiment. Then Prokopenko got off with a suspended sentence.

The damage caused by Sergei Les's illegal activities as head of the Crimean region may amount to 2 billion rubles, a source told Izvestia. Within the framework of fraudulent schemes in which an official is charged, more than 100 land plots could change ownership. According to Izvestia, before his arrest, Les tried to escape, but law enforcement officers stopped that attempt. At that moment, there were gold bars in his car with a total weight of about 12 kg, disguised as railway crutches, a number of media reported. However, this information has not yet been officially confirmed. Izvestia sent inquiries to the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor's office of the Krasnodar Territory, but no responses had been received at the time of publication.

Big row

According to Izvestia, Sergei Lesya and his second wife Ekaterina previously had real estate registered in Krymsk at 98A Batalonnaya Street and a mansion at 92 Karl Liebknecht Street. Les himself lives at the last address with his wife and children. A two-story, three-bedroom mansion on Batalonnaya Street on June 21, 2025, was put up for sale for 8.5 million rubles marked "urgent."

The official's first wife, Tatiana Les, has a registered house at 46/3 Marshal Zhukov Street.

As for Les's mansion, it was built on the site where the house of local resident Nadezhda Maltseva was previously located, from which the official, according to her, actually took it away. Izvestia contacted Nadezhda and she said that after the flood in 2012, when many houses in the city were severely damaged, she was resettled in a studio apartment. She wanted to take ownership of the municipal plot on which her house stood, but Les held a closed auction on it, preventing the woman from participating in it.

— We did an expert examination, which recognized that the house is in disrepair. We had already consulted with my son that if the house was in disrepair, then we would take ownership of the land, then we would sell the apartment and use the money to build there," Nadezhda said.

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However, as soon as she tried to apply for registration of the land plot, Les, who by that time had become the head of the district, verbally promised her help, but in fact simply deceived her, Nadezhda believes.

— I suffered a ligament injury during the flood. I had three surgeries. And I came to him on crutches. He says, "Now I will call one person and your issue will be resolved, my driver will arrive now, he will take you to this person." And I slowly went downstairs, got in the car, and we arrived at the realtor's office," Nadezhda continues.

Further, according to her, at the office, a man asked her if she was selling real estate. She replied in the negative, to which the employee pointed her to the door. After going outside, Nadezhda did not find a car with a driver and was left on crutches without help.

Then she was promised that she could claim the land she had lived on all her life if she took part in the bidding. However, she could not get to the auction, as, in her opinion, they could be held fictitiously. As Izvestia found out, the winner of these auctions was a third party, who then wrote a deed of gift in the name of Lesya's wife, Ekaterina. At that time, according to Nadezhda, Les was already building his mansion on her property.

According to Izvestia's sources, a Mercedes E-class car is registered on Les, and his wife drives a BMW X1. At the same time, in 2021, Les declared 2.2 million rubles of income (since 2022, the publication of information on the income of officials in Russia is prohibited).

Nadezhda and other residents who consider themselves victims of Les's actions suggest that the official could have organized a scheme for the appropriation of municipal lands through auctions, the winners of which are figureheads. Then they probably donated the land to people who were already connected with the Forest itself. Izvestia found that part of such real estate was registered to Olga Zueva, the mother of the official's wife, as well as his son Evgeny, who was listed as an employee of the administration.

Creating a positive image

On October 22, 2024, interviews with residents of Krymsk were published on the VKontakte social network, who massively stated that Sergei Les had taken away their land and registered it as his own or the property of friends. However, such statements did not affect the image of his family, which was formed in social networks and local media, Izvestia was convinced.

So, judging by information from the Internet, Lesya's wife, Ekaterina, is not only involved in her family, but also turned out to be a "professional coach, mentor, expert in spherical development," as she calls herself on Instagram (owned by Meta Corporation, recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation). Ekaterina organizes trainings for women on how to attract money and be successful.

At least since 2021, the local newspaper "Call" has repeatedly published articles about the spouse of the head.

Meanwhile, Izvestia found in public procurement from the district administration purchases from the newspaper "Appeal" of "services to inform the public about the activities of local governments." According to the latest such contract, the newspaper receives 1.7 million rubles for the provision of services from June 1 to December 30, 2025.

The contract states that the publication undertakes to provide services within three days from the date of receipt of the request from the customer. Izvestia found a similar contract for other periods in 2025 and earlier.

Other objects

Izvestia also drew attention to public procurement by the administration of land plots in the Crimean region. So, in 2025, in June alone, the administration purchased services for the purchase and sale of residential buildings and land plots occupied by them for a total amount of 51.7 million rubles.

As Dmitry Krasnov, Honorary lawyer of Russia and Chairman of the Board of the Moscow Bar Association No. 1, explained to Izvestia, this in itself does not necessarily indicate illegal transactions involving the transfer of real estate to municipal ownership, but this cannot be ruled out.

— If the head of the district holds auctions, he can prescribe such terms of the tender so that only the right people, his representatives, can win. He puts the land plots up for auction, they are bought, and then these people donate the property to pre-agreed persons. This is an understandable scheme that allows these plots to be transferred from state ownership to the ownership of specific individuals or himself," the lawyer noted.

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Izvestia also found information about a villa in Montenegro, which is registered to the ex-wife of an ex-official.

Krasnov added that the new contracts for the purchase of land plots at the state expense by the administration do not guarantee at all that these objects will not later become "victims" of the same bidding and will not end up in the hands of an official and his family members who will begin to profit from them.

— This is not only abuse of office, but also fraud. This is, at least, Article 159, part 4 – on an especially large scale, and even by a group of people who participated in this crime," Andrei Popov, a reserve lieutenant colonel and a veteran of the Alpha antiterrorism group, explained to Izvestia.

The punishment for such a crime, according to him, can be terms from 5 to 15 years in prison.