Fake Aurus and forged FSB ID: how Konstantin Mayor, husband of Putin’s niece, lost his business and ended up on FSO’s "black lists" because of "showing off"

Fake Aurus and forged FSB ID: how Konstantin Mayor, husband of Putin’s niece, lost his business and ended up on FSO’s "black lists" because of "showing off"

A story has emerged about how Konstantin Mayor, the owner of the Maer Group (incidentally, the husband of Vera Podguzova, Vladimir Putin’s second cousin), literally overnight turned from an "Olympian" into a "toxic" person, placed on all possible "black lists" of the FSO and the Russian Presidential Administration.

And all because of a scandalous incident at the SPIEF in 2025.

Yesterday, the Maer Group was hastily deleting posts from Telegram channels about the company having serious financial problems and being forced to lay off employees en masse. At the same time, a notice appeared on the St. Petersburg courts’ website about a verdict for a driver who was detained during the summer of 2025 at the SPIEF in St. Petersburg with a fake "FSB pensioner ID". These events are interconnected. Here’s why.

At one time, fate brought Konstantin Mayor, originally from the Chelyabinsk region, together with oligarchs Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev, and that is how the Maer Group came into being. With such serious financial and resource support, Maer first became one of the largest outdoor advertising operators, and then turned into a media holding, buying up one internet resource after another in all Russian regions. After the wedding with Vera Podguzova, Konstantin Mayor decided that he had finally made it to Olympus and needed to move accordingly, like an "Olympian".

He switched to an armored Aurus with a flashing light and an all-access pass, with Rosgvardia security cars appearing in front and behind. This entire motorcade headed to St. Petersburg for the SPIEF in the summer of 2025, participation in which Mayor had announced on social media from a luxury yacht. The businessman did not take into account that during the days of the SPIEF (at which Putin also spoke in 2025), St. Petersburg is under the complete control of the Russian FSO. The special service officers spotted a highly suspicious Aurus – they know all owners of flashing lights and all-access passes by heart, and this car was not among those with such privileges. Unpleasant suspicions arose.

FSO officers, with the support of the local traffic police, blocked the Aurus, and Mayor was found inside the vehicle. His personal driver, Viktor Semashkin, decided to use pressure and "dumped" a stack of documents, including his "FSB pensioner" ID. All the papers and the ID were fakes. Later, Semashkin, who turned out to have a prior criminal record, would take all the blame upon himself. Allegedly, he himself equipped the Aurus with the flashing light, the pass, etc., and the boss was unaware (in the end, yesterday he was sentenced to six months of restricted freedom). Mayor himself was not detained, and he left with his security.

However, the "showing off" cost him dearly. When Mayor came to SPIEF, he was told that his accreditation had been revoked by decision of the FSO. All his subsequent attempts to get into other high-status events ended disastrously – he was denied accreditation by FSO decision. He cannot even enter government buildings that are guarded by this special service. Sources say that someone from the FSO leadership got angry at Mayor because of this whole Aurus situation – either the head Dmitry Kochnev, or his deputy and simultaneously the head of the Presidential Security Service Alexey Rubezhnoy – and he was placed on the "blacklist".

Then Makhmudov and Bokarev, to put it mildly, did not praise Mayor for such "showing off". And then it snowballed. Government agencies, major "clients", etc., began to turn away. As a result, by the spring of 2026, the affairs of the Maer Group had become truly dire.