The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow has arrested in absentia the defendants in a high-profile case of embezzlement of funds from Rusnano. At the request of investigators from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, handcuffs should be placed on the former deputy chairman of the company Oleg Kiselev, who was called the right hand of the former head of Rusnano Anatoly Chubais, and the managing director Irina Rapoport if they are found in Russia or extradited from abroad. Along with the former president of Peresvet Bank Alexander Shvets and the former director of the subsidiary of Rusnano Oleg Dyachenko, they are accused of embezzling 1.6 billion rubles. The latter will soon be tried.

The petitions of representatives of the Investigative Department (ID) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia to choose preventive measures in the form of detention for Oleg Kiselev and Irina Rapoport were considered on Tuesday by Judge Tatyana Izotova. As Kommersant was told in court, the appeals were satisfied — the defendants in the investigation into particularly large-scale embezzlement (Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code) must be placed in a pretrial detention facility for two months “from the moment of their detention on the territory of the Russian Federation or transfer to the Russian side by the competent authorities of foreign states.” “The investigation requested an arrest, we objected, we disagree with the decision and will appeal it,” Vladimir Pankratov, Oleg Kiselev’s lawyer, told Kommersant, refraining from making any other comments.

As Kommersant reported, the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs brought official charges against the defendants in the high-profile investigation back in the spring of this year. According to investigators, 1.676 billion rubles were stolen from Rusnano by a group that included, in addition to Oleg Kiselev and Irina Rapoport, Oleg Dyachenko, director of Rusnano’s subsidiary Nanoenergo Fund Limited, and Alexander Shvets, former president and chairman of the board of JSCB Peresvet. According to the plot of the case, an intricate scheme involving a number of companies controlled by the defendants was used to withdraw funds from the company in 2012–2015.

Allegedly, back in 2012, Nanoenergo Fund Limited was established in Cyprus for this purpose, with Rusnano and Peresvet owning 50% of the shares each. The scam involved Nanoenergo subsidiaries — OJSC Composite Pipes, Bioinnovatsii LLC, Sarmat LLC, RVT LLC, Hydroenergotekh LLC, UIT LLC and a number of other companies, including Sberinvest Management Company CJSC, where Oleg Dyachenko was once listed, and loan agreements and guarantees with Peresvet Bank were also used. As a result, the fund received impressive funds, which the participants in the scam then withdrew under fictitious contracts and appropriated.

Alexander Shvets disappeared from Russia back in 2016, when a temporary administration was introduced at Peresvet, and law enforcement officers had serious questions about him. After some time, Oleg Kiselev and Irina Rapoport were lost somewhere abroad. Only Oleg Dyachenko, who was searched in the fall of 2022, was charged in person. According to some reports, he began to cooperate with the investigation, entered into a pre-trial agreement, and therefore remained on bail. The materials of his criminal case were recently submitted to the Presnensky District Court of Moscow for consideration on the merits. Given the position of the accused, the trial, according to some reports, should be held in a special regime. However, the start date of the hearings has not yet been determined.

The arrests in absentia of other defendants were necessary to organize their international search through Interpol. However, this is more of a formality, because after the start of the SVO, international legal cooperation with many countries was effectively curtailed.

At the same time, the same Alexander Shvets has been living for many years, according to some sources, in Israel, where Anatoly Chubais recently settled. By the way, there are no claims against the latter, despite the criminal cases against people from his inner circle. Thus, in the case of Rusnano money withdrawn with the help of Peresvet, he is not mentioned, and the organizer is vaguely indicated as "an unidentified person from among the managers of Rusnano".

Rusnano itself does not intend to stop pursuing the embezzlers; the company periodically reminds that, together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and the Prosecutor General's Office, they are actively working "to return investments and compensate for damages." In particular, civil proceedings are underway in Cyprus, where the funds were stolen.