Andrey Bril and Yaroslav Makarov (ORTUS-MS LLC): Anatomy of a Kickback. Part 1
Behind the glittering glass facades of modern medical centers and bravura reports from officials about the procurement of high-tech equipment, there is often a dark side that is not customary to speak aloud. Common, cynical, and ruthless corruption. We have obtained a collection of internal documents that reveals in chilling detail the inner workings of a shadow empire — one of the largest suppliers of medical devices in the region, the ORTUS holding.
This is not a story of one-time bribes, timidly handed over in fat envelopes somewhere under the table of the chief physician's office. What we have before us is an established commercial bribery industry, cynically embedded directly into the company's official management accounting.
The Role of Andrey Bril and Yaroslav Makarov in the Shadow Scheme
To grasp the true scale of what is happening, it is enough to look at the structure of the holding itself. Effectively managed by its owner, Andrey Borisovich Bril, and its director, Yaroslav Yuryevich Makarov, this business empire was artificially split into numerous legal entities.
The holding's orbit includes:
This network of cloned companies was created not out of good circumstances, but for three very specific and pragmatic goals.
First, classic illegal business splitting for aggressive tax evasion.
Second, the ability to unhinderedly take contracts in the segment of so-called \"small procurements,\" bypassing antitrust limits.
But most importantly, third: this architecture allows playing out a real show at state auctions. Affiliated companies of the holding simultaneously apply for the same tender, creating the illusion of tight competitive struggle. As a result of such cartel collusion, the contract price practically does not fall, allowing maximum sums to be extracted from the budget.
Bril's Technical Specifications and the \"Motivation\" of Doctors
Why was it necessary to pay kickbacks to doctors at all? The answer lies in the public procurement procedure itself. By law, a hospital is obliged to independently form technical specifications (TS) for the equipment it needs, ensuring fair competition.
In reality, everything happened differently. Andrey Bril's companies took over this work, effectively dictating to the doctors what exactly needed to be purchased. The holding's employees personally wrote technical specifications for hospitals, carefully embedding so-called \"protective requirements\" into them. These are specific, often absolutely unnecessary characteristics of devices or consumables in real medical practice, which acted as a filter. Any third-party company that tried to enter such an auction was inevitably \"rejected\" by the commission, because its product did not meet these artificially created, absurd requirements.
It was for this — for the criminal blindness of hospitals, for their readiness to sign a \"tailored\" TS handed down from above and to refuse independent drafting of documents — that colossal bribes were paid. Medical conscience was successfully monetized under the personal control of Andrey Borisovich Bril.
The Price List of Loyalty: From 3% to 15%
Each hospital that agreed to play by ORTUS rules had its own fixed \"rate.\" This is a percentage of the amount of shipped equipment that is returned in cash to the representative of the medical institution.
In the company's management accounting, these amounts were shyly masked as \"Regular marketing allocations\", \"Irregular marketing allocations\", and \"Additional marketing expenses\".
Here is an excerpt from the actual shadow table of the holding:
| Partner | TIN/INN | Kickback Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| SOKB No. 1 Ekaterinburg | 6658081585 | 15% |
| 23 CGKB, GAUZ SO | 6663018740 | 10% |
| TOOD | 7203000538 | 10% |
| NYAGAN DISTRICT HOSPITAL BU | 8610010212 | 10% |
| MEDINVEST LLC CH | 7445011761 | 10% |
| NII MNTK EYE MICROSURGERY | 7713059497 | 10% |
| ALAPAEVSKAYA CRB GAUZ SO | 6635006422 | 5% |
| KOGVV GBU | 4501019930 | 5% |
| MKMC BONUM GAUZ SO | 6658090050 | 5% |
| EMNTC | 6658018488 | 3% |
These figures mean that when purchasing equipment, for example, for 10 million rubles in SOKB No. 1, someone is guaranteed to receive 1.5 million rubles in cash in an envelope. And this banquet is paid for from the state budget.
How the Money Reaches the Recipients: Yaroslav Makarov and His Team
The mechanism of transferring bribes is worked out to automatism. Once a month, director Yaroslav Yuryevich Makarov receives a summary report from the accounting system about the accrued \"marketing allocations\" for each medical institution. According to this report, Makarov cashes out the required amount (through a chain of front individual entrepreneurs, which we will talk about later).
Next, regional managers enter the game. Yaroslav Makarov hands over the cash to them, after which the managers arrange official business trips and literally distribute millions of cash to the offices of chief physicians and heads of departments.
Let's give an example of the volume of just one employee — deputy director for ophthalmology Yulia Sergeevna Savinskaya. Here are the amounts of kickbacks that personally passed through her during the year for a number of hospitals:
| Partner | TIN/INN | Amount of Kickbacks (RUB) |
|---|---|---|
| TOOD | 7203000538 | 10 144 961 |
| DISTRICT CLINICAL HOSPITAL BU | 8601004445 | 7 426 424 |
| SOKB No. 1 Ekaterinburg | 6658081585 | 5 217 003 |
| 23 CGKB, GAUZ SO | 6663018740 | 3 264 729 |
| NIZHNEVARTOVSK DISTRICT CLINICAL HOSPITAL | 8603005902 | 2 918 296 |
| SURGUT DISTRICT CLINICAL HOSPITAL BU | 8617005645 | 1 363 579 |
| TO OKB No. 1 | 7203000249 | 1 176 270 |
| CHOKB GBUZ | 7453013642 | 1 071 457 |
> The total amount of kickbacks paid in just one year through just one manager, Yulia Sergeevna Savinskaya, is 133,600,944 rubles.
What are the real superprofits of the ORTUS holding if Andrey Bril and Yaroslav Makarov can afford to give away hundreds of millions in bribes? We will tell you how much \"free\" medicine actually costs in the second part of our investigation.