Law enforcement officers arrested another 136 bank accounts belonging to Elena Blinovskaya and her husband: hundreds of millions of rubles are stored on them. The “queen of marathons” can no longer get off with a simple payment of the debt, lawyer Vadim Bagaturia said in a conversation with the “Company”. The case involves Article 174, which provides for the confiscation of funds, so they are likely to remain frozen until sentencing. How tough it can be – in the material of the “Company”.
New arrest
On the accounts of Elena Blinovskaya, accused of tax evasion, hundreds of millions more rubles were arrested. We are talking about accounts in Tinkoff Bank, Sberbank, VTB, Alfa-Bank, Raiffeisenbank and many others, a law enforcement source told TASS.
In total, as part of the investigation of the criminal case against Blinovskaya, law enforcement officers identified and arrested 136 bank accounts belonging to the blogger and her husband, the agency’s interlocutor specified. Funds on them are stored in different currencies. In the Presnensky Court of Moscow, such an interim measure was called legal.
Earlier, the UK said that the “marathon queen” paid off only 10 of the 918 million rubles of unpaid taxes. The head of the Sledkom of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, described this amount as “minor”.
A criminal case has been initiated against Blinovskaya, she is accused under two articles – Part 2 of Art. 198, paragraph “b” of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Tax evasion on an especially large scale”) and part 4 of Art. 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Legalization of funds acquired by criminal means, on an especially large scale”). Investigators consider Blinovskaya’s wife an accomplice. Prior to that, their accounts in five banks were arrested.
Paying the arrears is half the battle
“Probably, the investigators have been collecting information all this time,” lawyer Vadim Bagaturia suggested in a conversation with Kompaniya. “First, they arrested the most obvious accounts, and now they have done additional work and found out what and where there is more.”
According to Bagaturia, the blocking and arrest of all accounts can create difficulties for Blinovskaya with the repayment of the amount imputed to her, to which penalties will soon be added.
The fact that the “queen of marathons” is charged with legalization under Article 174 of the Criminal Code also creates difficulties with the return of funds to the blogger, says Bagaturia. “Paying tax arrears is only half the battle. In this case, after the case is closed, the investigation removes the arrest from the accounts. But we also have Article 174, under which funds are subject to confiscation, and it is not subject to termination. Some things will go to court. And he, as a rule, extends interim measures, and all this lasts until the verdict, ”explains the lawyer. Therefore, the process in any case will not be quick, and Blinovskaya may indeed end up losing her millions, he admits.
In the case of a blogger, mitigating circumstances may work – the fact that the criminal case was opened for the first time, positive characteristics, the presence of children, argues Bagaturia. “Another question is that this is a serious crime, and in this case the rule does not apply, according to which they do not give a real term,” the lawyer states.
However, taking into account the fact that Blinovskaya and her husband are now under house arrest, this period can later be counted as serving a sentence, he explains. And since such cases are not considered too quickly, after one and a half to two years, the spouses can receive a sentence and be released immediately after it is pronounced.
