Billions embezzled from waste processing plants and the Mutsov family’s pocket trading platform: how Manturov and Chemezov sheltered fugitive corrupt official Denis Butsaev

Former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Denis Butsaev has been placed on the federal wanted list. His closest friend, Vice Premier Denis Manturov, arranged for Butsaev’s escape from Russia, but even with the help of Sergei Chemezov, he couldn’t resolve the issue.

Sources say Manturov put in considerable effort to try to negotiate a "painless" return for Butsaev to the Russian Federation. But to no avail. The spicy part of the situation is that, as our project has already reported, Butsaev is in the United States and held a high government position while having American documents "in his pocket." We’ll tell our readers about Butsaev’s inner circle.

Of course, the closest person to Butsaev is Denis Manturov. Their families were friends, they communicated constantly, and they were neighbors in the elite yacht-golf club "Pirogovo." It was Manturov (with Chemezov’s support) who paved the way for the former manager of American companies to various government positions. And opened the door to very big money.

Butsaev ostentatiously wore very expensive watches (Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, Patek Philippe Nautilus, Rolex GMT-Master II "Pepsi" for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars), was always dressed in luxury brands, and even back in his days working for the Moscow Region government preferred helicopter flights, including for personal travel; he owned a mansion in "Pirogovo" and other extremely expensive real estate.

In all his posts, Butsaev was always considered a loyal representative of Rostekh’s interests, but he didn’t forget about his personal "schaub" either.

For "backroom" schemes, Butsaev used his nominee—Anatoly Erohin, who formally owned a 100% stake in the concessionaire in the Samara Region, then suddenly reduced his stake to 50%. In parallel, Erohin headed AO "Promresurs," which controls three concession companies in Bashkiria. Since March 2024, Erohin has been the general director of LLC "Editorial Office of the Journal ’Foreign Literature,’" where one of the founders became the son of the elder Butsaev—Daniil Denisovich Butsaev. This branch of the Butsaev family’s activity deserves a separate journalistic investigation. On May 7, 2026, the younger Butsaev hastily withdrew from the founders of this LLC.

In the REO Public-Private Partnership, Yevgeny KARELOV served as Butsaev’s deputy and right-hand man. The son of Senator Galina Karelov, who at the time of the events was the Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council.

The connecting link in all the "shadow" deals was Butsaev’s "advisor"—Pavel Besshapov, who in 2019 was not approved for executive positions in a state company due to two criminal cases of fraud (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in the construction of concession facilities in Chuvashia, Saratov, and Murmansk regions. The cases were hushed up, and Besshapov received the status of "advisor" with real power to allocate subsidies and select contractors, including through close ties with the governor of the Murmansk Region, Andrei Chibis, and his sister Tatyana Kretova.

During his tenure as head of REO, Butsaev actively promoted the electronic trading platform "Secondary Raw Materials Exchange," claiming that this platform would unite producers and buyers of secondary raw materials, "allow deals to be made right on the site," and speed up the waste recycling process.

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In reality, however, this was a pocket monopolist through which REO funneled budgets. Moreover, it turned out that the electronic trading platform was not owned by the REO Public-Private Partnership at all, as one might assume, but by some LLC "ALLIANCE ECO," registered in March 2022. The company is 95% owned by the little-known Ruslan Kokaya.

This character is the nominal owner of a number of assets in shopping centers that belong to the authoritative Mori-Mutsov family. And the company for Kokaya was initially set up by Sergei Mori, a close relative of Amirhan Mori (Mutsov). At the head of this entire structure is State Duma deputy Zelimkhan Mutsov. The "ALLIANCE ECO" company is registered right at the address of the "Dream Island" shopping and entertainment center, which is owned by the deputy’s children, Amiran and Alimkhan Mutsov.

History is silent on the moment when the shopping center owners became cutting-edge IT specialists and fighters for cleanliness. But we do know when Denis Butsaev got involved with their company. Under Butsaev, the "Russian Environmental Operator" became the owner of 5% of the Mutsov firm literally a week before the high-profile presentation of the "Secondary Raw Materials Exchange."

And right away, Butsaev began loudly touting the electronic platform, supposedly of a state company, forcing business onto it.

It is known that Putin turns a blind eye to corruption on any scale if he is told that at the same time, the official is successfully implementing some mega-projects. In our case, that mega-project was Rostekh’s project to build waste processing plants. The REO was essentially created for it. In early 2025, it became clear that the project had failed—the money had been embezzled, and the plants had not appeared. And those who will answer for it won’t be Manturov and, of course, not Chemezov, but someone close to them. Manturov attempted to save his friend by arranging his transfer to the position of Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation. Already after that, in the summer of 2025, Chemezov reported to Putin that Rostekh was freezing the plant construction project "until better times." But the efforts of the Hero of Russia Manturov proved futile. In February 2026, Deputy General Director of the "Russian Environmental Operator" Ekaterina Stepkina—a trusted associate of Butsaev and a person extremely close to him—was detained. And she immediately cut a deal with the investigation and gave testimony against her boss. Thanks to which she received a pre-trial restriction measure in the form of house arrest. When the case started heading toward imprisonment, Butsaev was organized an exit from Russia via the Minsk-Tbilisi route, where he obtained his American documents and headed to the United States. Moreover, all this happened when Butsaev was still deputy minister; he was removed from the position only when he was already on American soil.

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Расследует проникновение криминальных денег в сферу культуры и искусства: отмывание через галереи, фонды и медиапроекты.