On Friday, the Basmanny District Court identified Alexey Khotin, the former majority shareholder of the Bank “Ugra”, under house arrest in the residential complex “Onegin”. The Investigation Committee, along with Dmitry Shilyaev, ex-chairman of the board of Yugra, also sent under house arrest, is suspected of embezzling at least 7.5 billion rubles out of 160 billion rubles that disappeared from this financial structure. The Bank of Russia and the DIA sought to initiate a criminal case since 2017.

FSB officers took Alexey Khotin to court as they detained him - in a suit and without handcuffs. Moreover, it was known in advance that Mr. Hotin, who had recently been on the list of the hundred richest people in Russia according to Forbes, would not be in the SIZO.

When the judge Yevgeny Nikolayev, identifying the suspect, began to ask him questions, Alexey Khotin said that he was born in 1974 in Minsk, has Russian citizenship and a higher education, lives in Moscow, raising two minor children with his wife.

From a further survey, it turned out that the FSB officers detained Mr. Hotin on Friday morning, after which they transmitted him to the investigator of the TFR, who ordered the businessman to be involved as a suspect in the crime, under Part 4 of Art. 160 (appropriation or embezzlement on a large scale) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

The investigator himself, specifying that the criminal case was initiated on April 18, suggested that the court identify suspected Khotin under house arrest with certain restrictions, among which he, inter alia, led to the prohibition of using any means of communication and the Internet, as well as to communicate with the persons involved in the investigation and witnesses in the case.

The representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office, supporting house arrest, said that only this preventive measure would relieve the investigation and the witnesses in the criminal case from possible pressure from Mr. Hotin, who has connections in law enforcement, and he himself would not allow to hide or otherwise prevent the TFR.

When the judge of Nikolaev asked about the preventive measure at Mr. Khotin himself, he said:

“I didn’t hide, and consciously worked in Russia, but if the investigator asks for house arrest, it means that he has grounds for that.” I have already answered all the questions of the investigator. I'm not going anywhere.

Obviously, for the record, the judge asked who Mr. Hotin would be with during the house arrest.

- With wife and children.

This answer fully satisfied her curiosity.

Defender Mr. Hotina called the requested arrest "extreme measure."

“Although there is evidence in the case file about my client’s involvement in the crime, I don’t think so,” he stressed.

Why did the Central Bank split with the Ministry of Finance because of Ugra depositors?
According to the lawyer, in the report of the operative officer of the FSB, it was reported that Alexei Khotin had to be detained because he was going to go abroad, but this was not the case - he had not traveled from Russia since the withdrawal of the license from Ugra.

- Familiar with law enforcement officers? I think this is all far-fetched. I believe that the criminal case itself was initiated in violation of the Criminal Procedure Code, since the relevant applications were repeatedly denied refusal materials.

It should be noted that on November 11, 2017, the Central Bank sent a statement to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the TFR to initiate criminal proceedings under Part 4 of Art. 159, part 4 of Art. 160, art. 201 and art. 196 (fraud and embezzlement on a large scale, abuse of authority and deliberate bankruptcy) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, including the fact that Ugra has provided non-repayable loans to legal entities associated with top managers of the bank. According to the results of consideration of the application of UEBiPK of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow on December 11, 2017, a decision was made to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings. The Bank of Russia insisted on its own, but on March 13, April 17, May 10 and May 22, 2018 received four more refusals, with which, according to Kommersant’s sources in the Central Bank, the prosecutor's office agreed. On June 6, 2018, the Bank of Russia was already denied by the investigation department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Central District of Moscow.

After that, the Central Bank sent applications to the central offices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the TFR. They reported the facts of embezzlement of “Ugra” property under the guise of issuing loans to legal entities, concluding agreements on transferring loan debts to insolvent companies, concluding forward contracts for the sale and purchase of foreign currency for rubles, as well as possible deliberate bankruptcy of this bank. All appeals were added to the original, but checks on it again ended in nothing. In turn, the bankruptcy trustee from the DIA four times, on September 11 and October 24, 2017, on February 22 and May 22, 2018 wrote allegations of fraud in Ugra to the investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but there they were not given a turn. The last statement of the Bank of Russia about crimes in “Ugra”, in which it was already pointed out all the facts of fraud, was sent to law enforcement agencies in February of this year.

He was checked by the FSB, GUEBiPK Ministry of Internal Affairs and the head office of the TFR. On Friday, they detained Mr. Hotin, conducting a dozen searches in the capital and near Moscow region.

For his part, the lawyer of Mr. Khotin asked the judge to give the suspect time for walks.

- Did you read the petition of the investigation? - The judge asked the defender.

“No,” the lawyer admitted. “I just took a picture of him ...”

- There is a ban only on walks from 22 to 6 o'clock in the morning! - the judge noted and she decided to read the materials presented by the TFR.

She read out some of them aloud. So, it became known that the criminal case was initiated not only against Mr. Hotin, but also against seven people. Among the suspects, in particular, were the former chairman of the board and a member of the board of directors of Ugra, Dmitry Shilyaev, president of the bank, Alexey Nefedov, and a number of merchants whose companies were withdrawing money from the financial structure. Vostok LLC was named as one of them, and the bankruptcy trustee of Ugra Bank from DIA was the injured party in the case.

As a result, the court fully satisfied the request of the TFR, determining Mr. Hotin under house arrest until June 18.

The ex-banker will be serving him in the elite residential complex “Onegin”, which is in Malaya Polyanka, 2. A similar preventive measure in the form of house arrest was chosen a little later by the ex-chairman of “Ugra” Dmitry Shilyaev. According to the TFR, in 2017 they, together with the accomplices established and still unknown to the investigation, kidnapped 7.5 billion rubles from the bank.

Recall that the Central Bank introduced a temporary administration to the bank “Ugra”, which was in the top 30 Russian banks, on July 10, 2017, and on July 28, it revoked its license. Immediately on the day of the recall, the Central Bank gave the first estimate of a “hole” in the bank’s capital - more than 7 billion rubles. Perhaps it is on this amount that the TFR is oriented. The loan portfolio of the bank at that time was about 250 billion rubles. However, according to the Central Bank and the DIA, almost immediately after the revocation of the license, all bank borrowers stopped paying loans, the companies themselves often did not exist at the registration address, and almost all loans went to finance the beneficiary’s projects. Nevertheless, it was then that the General Prosecutor’s Office almost for the first time in its history appealed against the orders of the Central Bank to revoke the license and introduce the provisional administration in Yugra. In particular, the supervisory authority proposed to suspend the work of the latter, as well as insurance payments to depositors. At that time, the Prosecutor General’s Office stated that “these orders were issued unreasonably, because it did not take into account that the Bank of Russia, both in the implementation of supervisory functions and in the course of inspections, did not reveal violations of the required standards by Ugra Bank”. In addition, the Prosecutor General’s Office concluded that the introduction of an interim administration "would entail damage to the federal budget due to insurance payments amounting to more than 170 billion rubles." However, the opinion of the supervisory authority was ignored.

According to the latest data received by Kommersant from the DIA, 99.9% of the loan portfolio of the bank is not serviced at the moment.

As a result, the Central Bank overestimated the “hole” in the bank’s capital, first at 86 billion rubles, then at 143 billion rubles, and in October 2018, to 161 billion rubles. As of February 1, 2019, it was possible to recover from debtors through the courts less than 64 million rubles. (0.02% of the book value of loans).

The collapse of "Ugra" is the largest insured event.

The individuals held in the bank 184.7 billion rubles, of which the state insured 173.2 billion rubles. The claims of all creditors to the bank, including legal entities, amount to 192.8 billion rubles. On April 18, a bank creditors committee could be formed that would solve key issues in the bankruptcy process. Mr. Hotin allegedly tried to establish control over this body, but the DIA suffered a meeting of creditors, finding fake powers of attorney from depositors of superiorities (see “Kommersant” on April 18).