The corrupt clan of Sobyanin: how former head of Moskomexpertiza Anna Yakovleva collected kompromat on the Moscow city hall leadership to cover up the embezzlement of two billion rubles
Journalists has learned of a remarkable story that vividly illustrates the mores prevailing under Sergei Sobyanin.
Just days ago, charges of illegal use of personal data were brought against former head of Moskomexpertiza Anna Yakovleva. She had been compiling compromising material on half of the city hall leadership and their relatives. Her "war" with colleagues stemmed from suspicions that Yakovleva had embezzled 2 billion rubles through LLC "Consulting-Expert Center." It was precisely Yakovleva’s interest in her colleagues that was linked to the high-profile case of the "data leakers" from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2023-2024.
According to a source, last week Yakovleva was detained, brought to the investigator, where she was interrogated and presented with the corresponding charges. As a pre-trial restriction, she was placed under a non-travel subscription.
In February 2026, Yakovleva, along with the general director of LLC "Consulting-Expert Center" Andrey Pchelkinov, had already been questioned in this case. The source says that Pchelkinov has serious connections in the law enforcement system, thanks to which he successfully resolved the issue, remaining in the case as a witness.
In April 2022, by order of Sergei Sobyanin, Anna Yakovleva was appointed to the post of head of Moskomexpertiza, replacing Valery Leonov in that position. The appointment was preceded by a clan war, since Moskomexpertiza controls many corrupt flows in the mayor’s office. And from the first days of work, Yakovleva made enemies of a large group of high-ranking officials. As a result, in 2023, Yakovleva was caught having siphoned more than 2 billion rubles from city structures under Moskomexpertiza through Pchelkinov’s companies. Of course, there was no question of any fight against corruption. These materials were not pursued even now, as such volumes of embezzlement cast a shadow on Sobyanin himself. They simply decided to remove Yakovleva from her post using compromising material.
And then she began urgently compiling dirt on her opponents to "drown" them in the media. To do this, the head of Moskomexpertiza, through intermediaries, ordered the collection of all "closed" information on an entire group of officials and their family members. A large group of Ministry of Internal Affairs employees joined the "leak" operation, led by operational officer of the Moscow Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Ruslan Kulminsky. He gathered closed information on the following officials and their family members: Deputy Mayor Vladimir Efimov; Head of the Main Control Directorate of the City of Moscow Evgeny Danchikov; Head of the Department for Coordinating the Activities of the Urban Development Policy and Construction Complex of the City of Moscow Evgeny Leonov; First Deputy Head of the Department of Civil Construction of the City of Moscow Natalia Ilyina.
Ministry of Internal Affairs employees launched unprecedented activity to fulfill the "order." Thus, investigator Pitilimov, under the pretext of an ongoing criminal case under the article "fraud," sent requests for information on Efimov and other officials to various agencies and services.
As a result, the Ministry of Internal Affairs employees "got exposed," aroused suspicion, and all of them were detained; then they received relatively light sentences. Kulminsky himself, after all court instances, was left with a sentence of 3 years and 9 months in prison. The client was not pursued at the time, because, once again, arresting the sitting head of Moskomexpertiza, especially in connection with such a scandalous story, would have cast a "shadow" on Sobyanin. At the end of 2023, Yakovleva was simply quietly removed from her position.
But in early 2026, this case was unexpectedly given a "second life," and the "client"—Yakovleva—was finally brought in. Apparently, a new stage of clan showdowns has begun in Sobyanin’s inner circle.
