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The Gagarinsky District Court of Moscow on Wednesday satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office, recovering from the former Minister for the Open Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Abyzov and Alfa-Bank $ 126.5 million in favor of the state. About this TASS reported in the press service of the court.
“The court satisfied the claims of the Prosecutor General’s Office and collected $ 104.5 million from Alfa-Bank, and another $ 22 million from Abyzov,” the court said.
Abyzov’s defense will appeal against the court’s decision, his lawyer Yuli Tai said. “As we found out during the meeting, part of this $ 22 million actually belongs to a Swiss citizen, and part – to one of the legal entities of this country. In our opinion, the prosecutor’s office failed to prove the connection of this Swiss and this organization with Abyzov, ”the lawyer explained.
According to Yulia Taya, during the meeting, the judge refused to allow representatives of the real owners of these funds to participate in the trial, although they were ready to present and substantiate their position.
The press service of Alfa-Bank told TASS that the credit institution intends to appeal the court decision in the manner prescribed by law.
Earlier, the prosecutor’s office pointed to “signs of an antisocial deal.” However, the actions of the bank, on the contrary, were of a purely social nature, according to Alfa-Bank. “First of all, we defended the interests of our depositors, including millions of ordinary Russian citizens,” the financial organization noted. They assured that “all the bank’s actions were aimed at ensuring the principle of repayment of loans issued.”
The lawsuit considered by the court was a continuation of last year’s trial, after which the Prosecutor General’s Office, the FSB and Rosfinmonitoring conducted an additional investigation and found that part of the proceeds from the transactions had been converted by Abyzov into $ 115 million and invested at interest in the project of the TON blockchain platform of the Telegram messenger by the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durovs. But the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019 through a court banned the issuance of cryptocurrency and its transfer to investors. Since the project did not take place, Abyzov’s funds with a 10% income ($ 126.5 million) were to be returned to Russia.
In the fall of 2020, the Gagarinsky Court of Moscow satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia on the transfer of Abyzov’s funds to the state in the amount of more than 32 billion rubles. The department explained that these funds became illegal income received in violation of the prohibitions and restrictions established by anti-corruption legislation.
Ex-Minister Mikhail Abyzov was detained on March 26, 2019. According to the investigation, he and his accomplices, by deceiving the shareholders of the energy companies OJSC Siberian Energy Company and OJSC Regional Electric Networks, stole 4 billion rubles and took them abroad. The crime was committed from April 2011 to November 2014, the actions of the defendants in the case were qualified under Part 3 of Art. 210 (creation of a criminal community) and under Part 4 of Art. 159 (fraud) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Criminal cases were also initiated against Abyzov on the facts of money laundering on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and illegal business activity (article 289 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In addition to him, eight more people became defendants in criminal cases.
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