Interpol will look good for Boris Mints and his sons

The investigation asked the court to arrest them in absentia, Mints was charged with embezzlement of 30 billion rubles.
31.01.2020
Vedomosti
Origin source
The Investigative Committee asked the Moscow Basmanny Court in absentia to arrest the businessman and owner of the O1 Group, Boris Mints and his two sons, said court spokeswoman Irina Morozova. They are put on the international wanted list.

All three are accused of especially large embezzlement (part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), Morozova specified. Moreover, the essence of the charges is unknown. The court will consider the application for their absentee arrest on January 31.

Mints and his sons are charged with embezzlement of about 30 billion rubles, a businessman’s acquaintance told Vedomosti and confirmed by Fedor Kupriyanov, the lawyer for one of Mints’s sons, Alexander. The defender has not yet read the case file. According to Kupriyanov, this is an unreasonable amount; he considers the case to be registered and aimed at taking property of the accused.

The accused do not admit their guilt, the lawyer of Dmitry Mints, Elena Kupriyanova, told Vedomosti.

Mints’s SPV company O1 Group Finance participated in a transaction with Otkritie Bank, which later formed the basis of the criminal case against the former headquarters of Otkritie Bank Evgeny Dankevich. A criminal case was opened against the latter a year ago; it goes under the same article as Mints: embezzlement on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, in 2017, Dankevich agreed with unidentified persons from the leadership of O1 Group and his company O1 group finance to purchase the latter's bonds for 34 billion rubles. Knowing that the real value of bonds is less than half of their face value, Dankevich ordered to purchase securities at full cost, then said Igor Krasnov, deputy chairman of the Investigative Committee (TFR). With money from the sale of bonds, O1 Group repaid its loans ahead of schedule in Otkrytie.

All this time, Dankevich was the only person involved in the criminal case because of O1 papers. He left Russia, was put on the international wanted list and was arrested in absentia. Dankevich’s defense said that the case was opened a year after he left Russia, and the banker himself was not hiding from the investigation, but was being treated.

Trust and Otkritie banks accuse the businessman and his sons of replacing and withdrawing assets.

Transactions related to O1 securities also became the basis for the trial of Trust (he transferred the claim from the affiliated Rost Bank) and Otkrytie with the Mintz family in London and a number of arbitration proceedings in Russia. In July, the High Court of London blocked the assets of Mints and his three sons for $ 572 million; total banks want to recover from the family more than $ 700 million.

O1 group finance issued all five bond issues in August 2017 - on the eve of the reorganization of Otkritie Bank and Rost Bank, banks purchased bonds worth about 57 billion rubles. With money from the sale of bonds, O1 Group repaid loans to Otkritie FC ($ 500 million) and Growth Bank ($ 350 million). The terms of the O1 bonds spoke of their non-market nature and low liquidity, banks say: the maturity of bonds is 2032, the main coupon on securities is paid only at the end of the term and there is no substantial security for them. Loans for which bonds were exchanged, on the contrary, were well secured. Only one person supported the deal with the Mints structure in Otkrytie - Dankevich: he allowed the purchase of O1 bonds, according to a London court.

Mintz was not aware of the details of the terms of the deal between O1 Group, Otkrytie and Rost Bank, as Mints himself wrote to the London court about this, as RBC wrote. According to the businessman, Mikhail Zadornov, the Otkrytie bank’s management, together with the Central Bank and the interim administration, were among those who launched a campaign against him because of personal hostility.

In September 2018, Mints had to part with key assets: O1 Group owed 25 billion rubles to the Moscow Credit Bank (MKB). on a loan for which shares of O1 Properties and the Future Group were pledged. The bank sold its debt to the Rossium concern Roman Avdeev (the main owner of MKB), and he transferred it to the Cyprus Riverstretch Trading & Investments (RT&I), which became the new main owner of O1 Properties and the Future. Its beneficiaries are the former manager of the Region Group of Companies, Pavel Vashchenko and Valery Mikhailov. In July, 66.59% of the Future was acquired from RT&I by the investment company Leningradskoye Adagio, the majority shareholder of the Region group of companies, Sergei Sudarikov.

Mints and his family moved to the UK in May 2018, Vedomosti wrote.

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