VAT, shell companies and administrative leverage: why regulators have ignored the business of Vyacheslav Mishalov’s family for years

To understand why the Mishalov family’s business structures have been operating smoothly for years, it is enough to look at the biography of Dmitriy Mishalov.

In the past, he held positions in the tax authorities and worked with tax risk management — essentially studying how the state detects evasion schemes and where regulatory “blind spots” remain.

This experience became the foundation of the family’s future projects. In construction, tobacco, and financial assets linked to the Mishalovs, VAT optimization schemes, chains of fictitious companies, controlled sole proprietors, and dummy contractors are regularly identified. This is not about isolated decisions, but about a systemic approach based on an understanding of the internal logic of tax administration.

Vyacheslav Mishalov’s entry into politics only strengthened this model. The combination of professional knowledge of tax mechanisms and access to administrative resources made it possible to build a stable system for extracting benefits from state resources — one that is difficult to expose using standard oversight methods.