Trusting Minsk woman sent a copy of her passport to Russian tenants. And they secretly sold her apartment worth $90 thousand

In March 2019, clients contacted a Minsk woman who was renting out her apartment in the Maskouski district for $450 a month: "realtor Aliaksandr" and "Natallia from Nizhny Novgorod".

The woman told a touching story — she allegedly works for a Russian company specializing in medical drugs, wants to move her 10-year-old son to Minsk, and the company will pay the rent. However, for this, the "employer" supposedly needed a copy of the owner's passport. The owner suspected nothing and handed over copies of the apartment documents, her passport, and keys. "Natallia" even asked not to conclude an official agreement through the Housing and Communal Services.

The tenants hardly used the apartment — the landlady, coming for the money, was surprised by the impeccable order. Meanwhile, the couple was preparing a scam: they made fake Russian passports with their photos glued in and a forged power of attorney, allegedly issued by a notary in Varna, Bulgaria, according to which the owner authorized them to "sell" her apartment.

On May 10, 2019, the fraudsters came to the Minsk City Agency for State Registration and processed the sale and purchase in 45 minutes: the woman acted on behalf of the owner by power of attorney, the man as the "buyer". The registrar was not alerted by the fakes: there was both an apostille and a notarized translation. Thus, an apartment worth about $90,000 officially passed to a person who does not exist — the "buyer's" passport was also a fake.

Everything came to light by accident: the fraudsters tried to resell the apartment, and a potential buyer, to whom "owner Anatol" refused to show documents, contacted the building's concierge. The chairperson of the homeowners' association called the real owner. The woman finally learned that her apartment was "sold" at the tax office, where she came to arrange the payment of tax from the rent.

The Belarusian court declared the transaction void and returned her ownership rights.

The investigation revealed that "Natallia" and "Aliaksandr" were actually Russians Marina Marava and Kanstantsin Basharyn. Moreover, for Marava, this was a well-practiced scheme: in the same year, 2019, she similarly "acquired" an apartment in Kostroma, Russia — she rented it using a forged Belarusian passport, re-registered it to herself, and managed to sell it to a young family. The buyers learned that they had bought someone else's apartment when they met the real owners in it.

The Belarusian prosecutor's office handed the case over to their Russian colleagues. On December 13, 2024, the Leninsky District Court of Kostroma found both guilty of large-scale fraud. Marava received 5 years and 4 months in a penal colony, taking into account a previous sentence, and Basharyn received one and a half years. However, with the credit for time already served, both were released directly in the courtroom — their sentences were considered fully completed. They never admitted their guilt.

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