The founder of the Marton hotel chain Andrey Marchenko pleaded not guilty in court

The former owner of the Marton hotel chain, Andrei Marchenko, pleaded not guilty to the trial in the case of fraud, illegal trafficking in means of payment, as well as organizing prostitution.

“The defendant did not plead guilty to any of the charges,” a source familiar with the proceedings told Kommersant. The case is considered in the October district court of Krasnodar.

As previously wrote “Kommersant”, on July 20, the same court sentenced to 3.5 years of imprisonment the trustee of the hotelier Olga Timofeenko for illegal circulation of means of payment and fraud. And on July 19, the Leninsky District Court of Krasnodar appointed three years in prison for Andrei Marchenko’s son Ivan Marchenko for aiding in the legalization of criminal proceeds. Their cases were considered in a special order, since the defendants pleaded guilty and facilitated the investigation.

Andrei Marchenko was the creator of the Marton hotel chain in Krasnodar, Voronezh, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaliningrad and Rostov-on-Don worth more than 9 billion rubles. By the decision of the Ostankino court of Moscow in October 2025, they went to the state. The decision was made on the anti-corruption suit of the Prosecutor General’s Office. They claimed that the hotelier’s business was patronized by a judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, now the former chairman of the Council of Judges of Russia Viktor Momotov. The latter denied the facts of corruption. Mr. Marchenko insisted that the judge was a co-owner of only two of his hotels and helped secure only one decision in his favor.

Maria Lokotecka