Bank owner Ugra accused of theft

SKR opened a new case against the former owner of the bank "Ugra" Alexei Khotin, charging him embezzlement for a total of 290 billion rubles. Lawyers call the record amount - it exceeds the total amount of loans issued by Ugra.
16.09.2019
RBC
Origin source
Record damage

The Investigative Committee has opened a new criminal case against the former owner of the bank "Ugra" Alexei Khotin, said on Friday, September 13, an investigator in the Basmanny court of Moscow. The statement was made at the hearing, where the petition for extending the banker's house arrest in the previously initiated case of embezzlement of 7.5 billion rubles was granted.

“Since the last extension of the preventive measure, a new criminal case has been instituted for another crime - upon the embezzlement of funds of PJSC Bank Ugra in the amount of about 283 billion rubles. [h 4 tbsp. 160 of the Criminal Code], ”said the representative of the Investigative Committee (TFR). In the case, more than a hundred people are to be interrogated and a complex of complex examinations to be conducted, he specified.

A new case was opened on July 10, follows from the documents that were presented to Judge Natalia Dudar at the meeting. Earlier, Khotin and two other accused, ex-president of Ugra Alexei Nefedov and former chairman of the bank Dmitry Shilyaev, were charged 7.5 billion rubles. The total damage in two cases exceeded 290 billion rubles. The Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) filed a civil lawsuit against the persons involved in the case for this amount, it follows from the case file announced in court. RBC sent a request to the DIA.

The combined case was transferred to production to Major General Sergey Chernyshov, who had previously investigated the case of the “colonel-billionaire” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dmitry Zakharchenko and led the investigation in the case of the death of the Kursk submarine.

“The amount can be called a record. But often, when things go to court, the amount is reduced. Sometimes nothing is left of the initial damage, ”said Alexei Dobrynin, partner at Pen & Paper, the Bar & Law Firm, to RBC.

Letter by Nabiullina

After withdrawing the license from Ugra in the summer of 2017, the Central Bank applied to law enforcement agencies several times, but to no avail. Immediately after the introduction of the provisional administration, the Prosecutor General's Office intervened for the troubled bank, saying that the bank did not violate mandatory standards and was a "financially stable credit institution." The bank was declared bankrupt a year after the license was revoked, and a criminal case against Khotin, Nefedov and Shilyaev was initiated only in the spring of 2019, after the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, the media wrote.

The contents of the letter were not disclosed, a letter from the bankruptcy trustee of Ugra (Deposit Insurance Agency) to the FSB was also attached to the case, which described a deal with the issuance of loans worth 7 billion rubles. Hotin’s oil business, accompanied by a substitution of collateral. All three were detained in April; the bank was granted victim status in the case.

The amount of damage in the new case coincides with the volume of all loans issued by the collapsed bank, which was estimated at 270 billion rubles. In his letters to the State Duma, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Sergei Shvetsov, noted that almost all borrowers, after revoking the license, stopped paying on loans and that most of the loaned businesses are associated with the owners of the bank. The interim administration of Ugra, and then the DIA, had to conduct more than a hundred processes in arbitration due to the fact that the bank's borrowers began to go bankrupt and liquidate in an organized manner, RBC wrote.

DIA gave a different assessment: 98% of all loans (about 240 billion rubles) of Ugra were used to finance Alexei Khotin’s business, said Yulia Medvedeva, director of the DIA expert analysis department. Khotin purchased assets at the expense of money received from various banks, then pledged them to secure debt, and loans were repaid by the money of Ugra depositors, Medvedev explained.

Revocation of a license from Ugra has become the largest insured event in the history of the Russian banking sector. DIA estimated the volume of insurance payments to depositors at a record 174.7 billion rubles. According to the Central Bank, the fair value of the bank’s assets was 51 billion rubles. with liabilities of 199.3 billion rubles.

Curfew for bankers

All three defendants in the Ugra case have unusual conditions of house arrest - they cannot leave the house only at night, from 22:00 to 06:00. Nevertheless, Khotin said that he could not go to work and this hampered the bankruptcy of Ugra and the payment of 35 thousand depositors “excellence” to each, each of which kept more than the insured amount of 1.4 million rubles in Ugra . According to Khotin, this is an argument in favor of softening the measure of restraint and giving him the opportunity to work. Such soft restrictions are not often applied in the framework of a house arrest, said Dobrynin, a lawyer for RBC.

Shilyaev’s defense asked to be released on bail of 2 million rubles. The investigator objected that this was not comparable with the amount of damage in the case. The ex-president of the bank Nefedov, responding to a statement by the investigation about the availability of significant financial resources that he can use to hide, said: “In my account there are only 50 thousand rubles.”

A week after the arrest and house arrest of Khotin, former and current employees of the banking department of the “K” department of the FSB Economic Security Service, Kirill Cherkalin, Dmitry Frolov and Andrei Vasiliev were detained. They were charged with receiving bribes (Article 290 of the Criminal Code) in the amount of $ 850 thousand and fraud in the amount of 490 million rubles, connected with the seizure of a share in the company from the victim in one of the criminal cases. The Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit against Cherkalin’s property in the state property for 6.3 billion rubles.

Khotin testified against employees of the K department, RBC sources said. Khotin defender Igor Mardirosov denied this information.

Other cases against bankers
In September 2019, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case on embezzlement and legalization of funds of Promsvyazbank, owned by Alexei and Dmitry Ananyev. The provisional administration of the bank claims against the former owners in the amount of up to 282 billion rubles. In the criminal case, we are talking about smaller amounts: the brothers are charged with embezzlement and laundering of 66 billion rubles. and $ 575 million. Also, a case involving the embezzlement of 102 billion rubles, in which the brothers do not appear, was connected with the withdrawal of funds from Promsvyazbank, the investigator said.

A criminal case has also been filed against the former chairman of the bank’s board, Yevgeny Dankevich, the damage is estimated at 34 billion rubles. Otkritie Bank filed a lawsuit against the former largest shareholder and top managers of the bank in the amount of 289.5 billion rubles.

The former chairman of the board of Vneshprombank Larisa Markus in 2017 received nine years in prison for embezzling 113.5 billion rubles from the bank.

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