Darvol’s secret: Military trader could be behind Russia’s biggest jewelry scam

In the criminal case of the founder of the jewelry house Darvol, Daria Spiridonova, who is suspected of fraud for almost 200 million rubles , new defendants may appear. Who are we talking about?

— Ordered a diamond in early March from Darvol. I paid for the order. According to the contract, it was supposed to be delivered in April. In April, they wrote to me that in a couple of days the stone would be in Moscow, and they asked me to transfer money for two additional stones for the ring. I did not receive my order, the money for the unfulfilled order was not returned. As a result, I was forced to contact the police on the fact of fraud. I do not recommend ordering anything. You won’t see your decoration, you won’t return the money either, ”says one of Darvol’s clients in a statement.

Investigators deal with the appeals of numerous deceived clients, find out the business ties of Daria Spiridonova and her partners, among whom there may be security officials.

There is a reason for this. Back in August last year, clouds began to gather over Darvol. At that moment, a story appeared on one of the Russian TV channels with deceived customers of the jewelry house. People complained that they gave their jewelry for sale or for repairs, made an advance payment for the delivery of stones, but after that they did not see either the money from the sale or the jewelry itself.

Daria Spiridonova was placed under house arrest

It was about decorations that cost comparable to decent apartments in Moscow. On a specially created website on the Web, the victims themselves claimed that the real damage could be measured not in hundreds of millions of rubles, but in billions. Allegedly, not only Russians, but also suppliers of precious stones in Bangkok, Hong Kong and New York suffered from the actions of Spiridonova and her team.

The victims agreed to film only with their faces covered and with altered voices, claiming that the security forces were actually behind the Darvol company.

How the myth of Darvol was born

Officially, the Darvol jewelry house appeared in April 2017. Before the launch of the project, Daria Spiridonova, aka Daria Petra, Daria Petrova, Daria Volkova, wrote in her social networks that she was looking for creative people to implement her idea.

Soon a powerful and aggressive advertising campaign began, the Network was full of numerous accounts of the company and Spiridonova herself in all popular social networks. The company was advertised in telegram channels, in the press and even on TV, and Daria herself was presented only as the “first lady” of the jewelry business, “Mrs. Darvol”.

Spiridonova’s team developed such activity not only in Russia, but also abroad. Life discovered the name of a woman in US business registries. In March 2021, DARVOL LLC was registered in the Los Angeles area of ​​Sherman Oaks with activities in the field of jewelry trading. The company is still listed as operating, however, Spiridonova had already disappeared from the list of key business figures by that time.

The fact that the American project was not started by the namesake Spiridonova is evidenced by the personal card of the businesswoman. According to the document, when registering an American company, the founder of DARVOL LLC indicated her Russian address – in Mansurovsky Lane, where the head office of the jewelry house of Daria Spiridonova is located.

Life found out that de jure Spiridonova’s firm never belonged to her. The founder of Darvol and its sole owner in April 2017 was her father, Alexander Petrov.

The American business of Daria Spiridonova is easily located in foreign business registers

What is Spiridonova’s father known for?

Life found out that Petrov is 60 years old, he was born, lived and worked in Cheboksary for a long time. At home and in Moscow, he was listed as the general director of several security organizations, and his full namesake once headed the Cheboksary branch of the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Formally, Petrov lives modestly, almost ascetically. The man owns only an apartment in a socket on the outskirts of his native Cheboksary. This is the family nest of the Petrovs, all members of the family were registered here, including Daria Spiridonova and her brother Pavel.

In addition to her, Petrov Sr. owns a small summer cottage – eight acres of land in a forest area southwest of the capital of Chuvashia. He has no cars, no real estate in the capital. He is listed as an employee of one of the Russian banks.

Elena Petrova (mother of Spiridonova), Alexander Petrov, Daria Spiridonova

Special Equipment Dealer

In September 2017, Petrov got a partner. A 10% stake in Darvol went to 41-year-old Alexey Semuka, who by this time already had experience in implementing several specific business projects.

One of the merchant’s firms provided consulting services in the field of computer technology, developed software and recruited IT specialists for various organizations.

Partner Alexander Petrov lives better. He owns Volkswagen Touareg SUVs and a brand new BMW X6 wrapped in a protective green film. He also owns a three-room apartment in his small homeland – in the Far East. This is a family nest, in which, in addition to the merchant himself, his parents and brother lived. It is known that now the man lives in a military town in the suburbs.

He has an ambiguous biography. Life found out that in October 2013, Semuka, as an individual entrepreneur, won three government contracts for the supply of special-purpose optics for one of the military units in the Moscow region. The total amount of contracts amounted to 3.25 million rubles.

New BMW X6 Alexey Semuka

On October 31, 2013, at the Kievsky railway station in Moscow, a man was detained by the transport police. Semuka was caught illegally purchasing 40 kg of gunpowder from the conductor of a long-distance train, which he got hold of in Bryansk. A year later, the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow found him guilty under Article 222 of the Criminal Code (acquisition of explosives by a group of persons by prior agreement) and sentenced him to two years in prison. The contracts signed by Semuka with the military are gone.

In 2017, the full namesake of Semuka became a defendant in a scandal involving an attempt to illegally export the latest Russian military radio stations to the United States.

According to media reports, Semuka allegedly received an order for a walkie-talkie from a certain French citizen who worked for the US intelligence services. The Russian security forces learned about the upcoming deal, they established the identity and status of the customer, and the French intermediary was detained.

The end of the Darvol jewelry house

In August last year, after a criminal case of fraud was opened against Daria Spiridonova, Alexey Semuka almost immediately left the founders of the Darvol jewelry house. A couple of weeks later, he opened the Magna consulting firm, located a two-minute walk from the Petrov family firm.

By this time, the senior partner also got rid of his share. Now the company is solely owned and managed by a 23-year-old Kirill Karpov from Balashikha. It looks like a nominal. The young man is a chronic debtor. The FSSP initiated 61 enforcement proceedings against him for a total amount of about 300 thousand rubles.

On February 6 of this year, Jewelery House LLC, the owner of the Darvol brand, began its bankruptcy proceedings.

All these details suggest that several partners could have been involved in Daria Spiridonova’s multimillion-dollar scams in Darvol. Now the investigation is clarifying the role of each.