The fact that the management of the State Bank VTB is engaged in theft, has been known for a long time. The problem is that embezzlement was not a separate episode, but a full-fledged foundation of the corporate culture of this credit institution. Without it, now, no large-scale economic decision can be made.

What becomes public is only the tip of the iceberg, but this is enough to terrify the scale of plundering one of the country's largest banks. One such example is the recent verdict to the director of the Novosibirsk branch of VTB and his deputy who was accused of embezzling more than 1.1 billion rubles. Scammers used extremely primitive schemes, which in the absence of accomplices in the central management of the bank were simply obliged to be immediately revealed the security service of VTB.

The Novosibirsk process lasted four years. The main defendants of the case were the former manager of the Novosibirsk branch of VTB 55-year-old Vadim Grigoriev, whom the investigation considered the leader of the criminal group, and his deputy, 49-year-old Irina Dolgova. As previously reported by the agency Ruspres, Dolgova and Grigoriev were the defendants of another case - the embezzlement of the property of OOO Rassvet.

Members of the group submitted to VTB a package of fictitious documents with falsified indicators of financial and economic activities of borrower companies, mainly agricultural producers, and information about the availability of their collateral. The purpose of the requested loans was indicated as the purchase of petroleum products, herbicides and mineral fertilizers. The management of the VTB branch and the patrons of corruption schemes in the bank's board ensured the consideration of loans without checking the reliability of information about the applicant. The money received by the borrower company was redirected to the accounts of firms controlled by the scammers. According to the investigators' calculations, the total amount of the theft exceeded 1.1 billion rubles.

Grigoriev and Dolgova were charged with embezzlement (part 4, article 160 of the Criminal Code) and laundering of the stolen money (Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) by purchasing two apartments. Alleged accomplices of top managers - businessman Alexander Krivenko and his assistants Larisa Zhukova and Larisa Golovach - were charged only with Art. 160 CC.

In September 2012, the Zheleznodorozhny Court proceeded to consider the case. By that time, Grigoriev and Dolgova were dismissed from VTB, but at the same time they occupied key positions in the group of companies SAHO. The trial progressed slowly. The defendants repeatedly changed their defenders, and it took a long time for the new attorneys who entered the process to understand the essence of the case, the materials of which are 256 volumes. Ex-bankers claimed that they did not know that the papers submitted by the borrowing companies were false.

In January 2016, the court sent an ex-manager of the VTB Grigoriev to the pre-trial detention facility; he did not attend one of the meetings. The former financier was found by the police in the cardiology department of the hospital. However, after the medical examination, which did not reveal any obstacles to finding the accused in custody, he was placed in a cell. In the autumn of the same year, a similar measure of restraint-the arrest-was chosen for Mrs. Dolgova. According to informed sources familiar with the progress of the trial, Alexander Krivenko, one of the defendants who pleaded guilty, addressed one of the meetings with a statement about the threats he received. According to him, under the brushes of his car's windshield, he found a note: "Sasha, we all know, if Irka goes to jail, you're dead." Apparently, considering that these threats could come from someone from Mrs Dolgova's close circle, the court also arrested her.

As the senior assistant to the public prosecutor of the Zheleznodorozhny district of Novosibirsk, Tatiana Teslya, said, it took Judge Andrey Malakhov two weeks to announce the verdict. Vadim Grigoryev, was condemned for 9.5 years in the colony of the general regime and a fine of 800 thousand rubles, Irina Dolgova - for one year and 200 thousand rubles less. At the same time, the punishment was even more severe than the state prosecutor demanded in the debate - 8 and 6.5 years, respectively. Zhukova and Golovach were taken into custody in the courtroom: the court decided for 4.5 years of imprisonment for the former, and half a year less for the latter. Alexander Krivenko got off with a four-year suspended term. VTB's suit against the convicted will be considered in the civil process. Given the accrual of interest, penalties, fines, its amount is 2 billion 485 million rubles. But no one will return this money to the state as the leading shareholder of the bank.

The case of Dolgova and Grigoriev is one of many. In Mordovia, the head of the car lending group of the regional operational office of VTB 24 (which is in the same group as VTB) Vladimir Chernyshev will soon appear before the court. He deduced under the fictitious contracts of 7.7 million rubles.

In the prison of Novokuznetsk there are nine bankers who are members of Olesya Cherednichenko's criminal gang, accused of embezzling a billion rubles. In 2007, 25-year-old employee of VTB 24 Cherednichenko and her husband,previously convicted for apartment fraud criminal Konstantin Cherednichenko organized a group that stole from the bank 1.2 billion rubles. In total, Cherednichenko and other employees of VTB 24 issued 84 loans to one-day firms, money was withdrawn and cashed for several years. This was known in VTB, as Olesya Cherednichenko obviously didn't live on the salary that she received in the bank. Cherednichenko's wedding, for example, was attended by showman Sergey Minaev, and for the guests the group "Disco Accident" performed. In 2013, the trial of members of the group began. Olesya Cherednichenko fled to the European Union, where she lived with her child on fake passports. In 2015, she was detained in the Netherlands, where she was identified for fingerprints. Now the Russian security forces are trying to extradite an employee of VTB 24, but the matter drags on - very many in the central management of the VTB group do not want Cherednichenko to testify.

In Perm, a gang of 19 people, led by Security Service "VTB 24" Alexander Polsky and Alexey Shvetsov, who issued fictitious loans, was convicted. In Penza from the cash register of one of the branches of VTB imperceptibly disappeared 100 million rubles. Not only in Russia - even in Nagorno-Karabakh, the local VTB office was headed by fraudsters: the accountant Sharmakh Grigoryan and the cashier Valentina Grigoryan recently stole about $500 thousand from depositors.

As for Vadim Krivenko and Olesya Cherednichenko, their concern for their own safety can not be considered excessive. Employees of VTB, who know too much about the top management of the bank, do not live long. One can recall, for example, the death under unclear circumstances of the chief specialist of VTB Alexander Funin, who allegedly shot himself right at the daughter's birthday. Or the managing director of the VTB corporate block, Oleg Zhukovsky, whose corpse with tied hands and feet was found by operatives in an empty pool near his house in the elite village of Lesnaya Opushka. Moreover, VTB-friendly investigators quite seriously explained what had happened ... by suicide.

The fact that now informed fraudsters from VTB are no longer being killed, but instead sent to jail, is very dangerous for the top managers of the group. Having cleared the regional management of the bank, the siloviki, based on the collected operational materials, should deal with the central management team of VTB, which was previously considered untouchable. VTB managers know this and, according to some information, are looking for ways to legalize capital in the West. An excellent opportunity is given by a scandalous deal in Bulgaria. Ignoring the rights of shareholders, VTB Capital re-registered the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (Vivacom brand) holding company for a consortium led by businessman Spas Roussev. This person is considered a "purse" of VTB managers.