African passions of VTB and Andrei Kostin

The state-owned 60% VTB bank works a lot and very interestingly working abroad.
06.09.2019
The Moscow Post
Origin source
Africa is the mainland of victorious corruption. And no one was probably surprised when, in the beginning of the tenth years, the Mozambique Ministry of Defense structures did not conclude arms contracts directly, but through a local private company, Privinvest Group and smaller firms. They did not get their money in the republic, so the military turned to three foreign banks - Credit Suisse (Switzerland), BNP Paribas (France) and VTB (Russia). The total loan amount is about $ 2 billion, of which 1.2 billion went under secret articles. But somehow it happened that Privinvest and its partners got the money, but they forgot to transfer it to the military. It happens. And all would be fine, but the United States became interested in the matter, because part of Credit Suisse's capital is controlled by American funds, which means that the matter falls under Washington's jurisdiction. Not that Washington needed any reason to recognize anything as its jurisdiction, but when it is possible to comply with conventions, they are respected there.

Since the money has not reached the borrowers, then there is nothing to give loans. It seems that the money issued to state companies simply evaporated along the way, the investigators were not able to find the people who saw them at all. As a result, in June 2016, Mozambique admitted its default on debt to VTB. And what is characteristic, in blessed Russia nobody was interested in where hundreds of millions from the state-owned 60% bank had gone! The Americans, of course, are not good fellows, there are plugs in every barrel, but Russian equanimity does not decorate Moscow either.

Why, then, do Americans seek our money, and we don’t? The answer is simple, and it consists of two words - Andrey Kostin. The head of VTB has access to the highest circles of power in Russia, he could easily have attracted the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to search for his money, but for some reason he did not. Maybe because he really does not want this money to be found?

Would you like in Switzerland?

In addition to the Americans, the Swiss were also involved in the investigation: Alpine investigators sincerely do not understand how their compatriots could not see who they are negotiating with. Therefore, they began to seek the personal interest of top managers, especially since the commissions for the banks that participated in the transaction were unusually high - VTB and Credit Suisse received about 200 million just for agreeing to give money.

And this personal interest has been found! Everyone except VTB, whose shareholders for some reason did not express a desire to get to the bottom of the truth. Only meticulous British accused VTB of violating the rules of information disclosure - supposedly the bank did not notify its shareholders about a pleasant, transparent and promising deal with Mozambique. Well, yes, the Englishwoman crap, do not get used to it.

But the Russian media did not shit, they actually sidestepped this topic, although VTB as a bank with predominantly state participation is our collective property. As a result, Deutsche Welle wondered why the Western investigation was directed mainly against Credit Suisse, and VTB, which was apparently testified against by the former head of the Mozambique Ministry of Finance, Manuel Chang, managed to stay away. The economist Muzila Nhansal, who is engaged in the topic of mysterious theft, asks in this connection who actually runs VTB Bank, because “he may look like a Russian company, but we don’t know who is behind the shareholders and their interests - maybe this is who something not interested in publicity. ”

No need to look for a black cat in a dark room, Mr. Nhansal, she is not there. Top managers at Credit Suisse have already entered into transactions with the American investigation and have recognized the fact that they received kickbacks from the Mozambique authorities and, apparently, bribes from private intermediaries. Do you want us to have it like in Switzerland? So that Andrei Kostin, panting and blushing heavily, tell the whole world how the bank entrusted to him agreed with the authorities of Mozambique, and then threw them together with the Privinvest Group? Will Vladimir Putin say thanks to him? Or Sergey Lavrov, who had to fly to Mozambique to deal with the situation?

Now it’s impossible to say how much effort and money had to be invested in order for the international investigation into VTB to fade. “We are fortunate that we got out of the process absolutely clean,” Kostin said in a blue eye. The word “lucky” is worth many hours of upright lies, because “luck” is when the desired result is achieved undeservedly.

Especially large

The money has disappeared, Mozambique has been restructuring the debt to VTB in half, and at the same time is starting to sue the owner of Privinvest Iskandar Safa - apparently, some of the money has settled in offshore controlled by him, and it’s not a fact that this happened without agreement with creditors. Well, the reputation of a state-owned Russian bank after three years of rinsing in international financial circles has noticeably faded. And the investigation is not over: if any of the prominent American shareholders write a complaint, it will not seem to anyone. The Russian Footprint is expensive: in 2017, the Americans fined the powerful Deutsche Bank $ 425 million for participating in the so-called “mirror deals” with Russian shares. Do you think they will take less with VTB?

The financial result of the scam: since June 2016, when Mozambique announced a default, the value of VTB shares fell from seven to four kopecks per share. That is, our common state bank has fallen in price almost twice. If this is not an especially large-scale damage, then what do crime in the financial sphere look like? Capitalization of 1.033 trillion rubles. by the end of 2015, 959 billion in a year - and only 500.50 billion at the time of writing. Half a trillion rubles, of which 300 billion is the state’s share, evaporated under the wise leadership of Andrei Kostin.

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