The Investigative Committee dropped the criminal case of money laundering (Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code) against blogger Valeria Chekalina (ler_chek) and her husband Artem Chekalin. The couple's lawyer, Konstantin Tretyakov, told BFM about this. Chekalina herself confirmed this information in her Instagram story.
“Today the criminal case of the Chekalins was terminated on the second episode, which concerned charges of money laundering in the amount. Initially, Chekalin was charged with legalization of 130 million rubles, but during the investigation the amount increased to 280 million rubles,” Tretyakov said.
The lawyer added that the Investigative Committee made this decision “due to the absence of “corpus delicti” in the actions” of the Chekalins.
At the end of December last year, the Investigative Committee dropped another criminal case against the blogger and her husband — about non-payment of taxes (Part 2 of Article 198 of the Criminal Code). At the same time, the Chekalins were allowed to use the Internet.
A year ago, the investigation alleged that from July 2020 to July 2022, the blogger failed to pay 311 million rubles to the tax authorities. At the end of May last year, Konstantin Tretyakov announced that his trustee had fully repaid the debt.
More than 10 million people have subscribed to Valeria Chekalina’s Instagram page. The blogger owns her own cosmetics brand, Letique Cosmetics, and sells workout programs and nutrition plans. She received the bulk of her income from organizing fitness marathons.