The Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has completed a four-year investigation into the case of Alexander Artamonov, the former general director of the large insurance company Respect. Before the license was revoked in 2019, Respect was the largest insurer of property developers and controlled about 70% of this market. Artamonov is accused of embezzling 1.4 billion rubles. of the company’s clients and misappropriation of a building worth about 700 million rubles. The second person involved in the case, the owner of “Respect” Alexander Kondratenkov, who, among other things, insured the life and health of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, fled from the investigation and received a passport of a Chilean citizen.
The investigation of the case against the former general director of IC “Respekt” has been ongoing since 2019, and the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation recently approved the indictment. As Kommersant previously reported, the Central Bank initiated the investigation. Initially, the case file referred to the embezzlement of almost 5 billion rubles. from the funds of the insurer’s clients, however, closer to the end of the investigation, the amount of damage was noticeably reduced.
The actions of Alexander Artamonov are qualified by the investigation as misappropriation or embezzlement on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
There are two episodes in the case, the first of which relates to the period from October to November 2017. Then, according to the investigation, the general director of Respect, having united in a criminal group with the ultimate beneficiary of the insurance company Alexander Kondratenkov, illegally appropriated an office building in Moscow worth about 700 million rubles. In addition, according to the investigation, in 2018-2019, Messrs. Kondratenkov and Artamonov stole over 1.4 billion rubles received from insurers.
It should be noted that before the revocation of the license in 2019, IC Respekt controlled about 70% of the developer liability insurance market. So, in 2017 alone, the company collected 6.8 billion rubles from construction companies. insurance premiums, it insured the liability of more than 3.3 thousand developers. But on December 18, 2018, the Central Bank excluded IC Respekt from the list of insurers of developers, and a few months later deprived it of its license. According to the regulator, the company systematically violated the rights and interests of its customers, unreasonably denying those insurance payments.
The second person involved in the case, Alexander Kondratenkov, went abroad back in 2017 after initiating a case related to his other company, Vector, which was based in Simferopol.
According to law enforcement officers, about 70 million rubles were illegally withdrawn from this company, and in addition, the building of its office was stolen.
It can be noted that, in addition to Respect and Vector, Mr. Kondratenkov also controlled the Central Insurance Company (CSO), which in 2017 managed to win a tender from larger and more well-known rivals to conclude an agreement on life and health insurance for employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for 13 .7 billion rubles However, after a short time, the CSO lost its license.
In the case of embezzlement in “Respekt”, Mr. Kondratenkov was arrested in absentia and put on the international wanted list. However, by this time, the businessman had acquired, according to Kommersant, a Chilean passport in the name of Alexander Garcia-Feskov. With him, he calmly moved around the world and even tried to organize an insurance business in Canada.
Meanwhile, after the approval of the indictment, the criminal case of the general director of Respect will be considered by the Lefortovo Court of Moscow.