The Basmanny District Court granted the petition of the investigators of the Main Investigation Department of the TFR and decided to initiate a criminal case against Alexander Ivanov, the former owner of the Reserve Bank, suspected of particularly large-scale fraud and large-scale embezzlement or embezzlement of entrusted funds, UtroNews correspondent reports with reference to Kommersant .
Judge Valentina Levashova ordered Ivanov’s arrest for two months from the moment of his detention in Russia or his extradition from abroad. The court decision was made on the basis of information provided by operational officers about the location of the person involved in the investigation outside of Russia.
The defendant’s lawyer, Yevgeny Shalamov, stated that his client was not properly notified of the initiation of a criminal case, and the certificate and petition were drawn up formally. Shalamov also noted that the search for Ivanov began only at the end of June, and it is practically impossible to carry out significant measures to establish his whereabouts in such a short time. The defender announced plans to appeal the decision of the Basmanny Court in the Moscow City Court.
The arrest of Alexander Ivanov was carried out as part of an investigation into the theft of funds from the Reserve bank in Chelyabinsk. In 2017, the Central Bank of Russia revoked the license from Reserve due to high credit risks. Until June 2017, the bank was owned by Ivanov, who in 2009 acquired it from Valeria Savelyevahead of the AVS-Group holding.
In May 2017, Ivanov and related investors sold their shares in the bank to a number of individuals from Moscow, including Andrey Andreev. According to the results of June 2017, the number of highly liquid assets of the bank decreased by 88%, mainly due to a decrease in cash on hand. The number of securities decreased by 4%.
Bank “Reserve” went bankrupt, and at the time of revocation of the license, he had obligations mainly to individuals and individual entrepreneurs in the amount of more than 1.3 billion rubles.
The Bank of Russia and the Deposit Insurance Agency filed several complaints with law enforcement agencies about the theft of Reserva’s property, falsification of financial statements, deliberate bankruptcy and abuse of power. The ICR has launched an investigation under several articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which has not yet been completed.
One of the first detainees in the framework of the investigation was the former chairman of the “Reserve” Konstantin Bazanovwho was accused of embezzling 125 million rubles by providing a fictitious loan, which was cashed out and appropriated by him together with the bank’s executives.
In 2021, Bazanov was given a suspended sentence of four years in prison by the Central District Court of Chelyabinsk. The prosecutor’s office appealed the verdict and asked the court to change it to real imprisonment for six years, but to no avail.
The DIA filed a claim with the arbitration court for damages in the amount of 790 million rubles, the defendants in the case are 30 people, including the former owners and top managers of the bank.
“Kommersant”, 07/05/2023, “Moscow is looking for a Ural banker”: The arrest in absentia of Alexander Ivanov, necessary to confirm the search procedure through Interpol, has become another milestone in the long-standing investigation into the theft of funds from the Chelyabinsk JSC Bank Reserve. […] The DIA filed a claim in arbitration for damages for 790 million rubles, the defendants in which are 30 people from among the former owners and top managers of Reserve, including Alexander Ivanov and Andrey Andreev. […]
It is worth noting that Andrei Andreev was the first to escape the investigation. As Kommersant reported, he was charged in absentia with embezzlement of 1.4 billion rubles. from another bankrupt bank – the Moscow Premier Credit, where he was an adviser to the board of directors, and after him questions arose for Alexander Ivanov. — Inset K.ru
According to the DIA, in the course of bankruptcy proceedings, it was established that the persons controlling the bank committed illegal actions to alienate assets, remove encumbrances from property and issue technical loans.
Ivanov denies all allegations and claims that the bad loans were issued by the new owners of the bank to which he sold it. However, the DIA and the TFR believe that the former owners are also involved in the withdrawal of assets.
eanews.ru, 08/13/2020, “He is in Switzerland, he is doing well”: DIA is trying to recover money from the former Sverdlovsk state banker Ivanov”: The DIA applied for 30 persons at once, including Alexander Ivanov, who was considered the beneficiary of the credit institution. Also among the co-owners of the asset were his parents Viktor and Lyudmila Ivanov, aunt Larisa Meshchaninova and wife Anna Chetverkina – the daughter of a Yekaterinburg businessman, a native of Sverdlovenergo Leonid Chetverkin. What Alexander Ivanov is doing now is not known for certain. A representative of the Yekaterinburg business community, who wished to remain anonymous, told EAN that the ex-banker is doing well.
“It seems that he bought some kind of insurance company, they said that he lives in Switzerland, almost a citizen of this country, he comes to Moscow only occasionally. Now, probably, they will stop flying at all, ”said our interlocutor.
Shortly before the collapse of the bank, it was announced that the “family” had sold the credit institution. As they said then in the “Reserve”, in order to obtain a universal license, giving the right to carry out the entire spectrum of banking activities, it was decided to increase their own funds by attracting a new investor. Andrey Andreev became one of the shareholders of the bank. This surname is also present in the “black list” of the DIA.
Interestingly, even before the purchase of “Reserve” in 2009, Alexander Ivanov and his father-in-law Leonid Chetverkin appeared in a scandal with the Sverdlovsk provincial bank, which they co-owned along with the Sverdlovsk government. In 2008, the credit institution faced liquidity problems. So, for example, Vedomosti then wrote that in just one transaction at the height of the crisis, 264 million rubles could “leave” the Sverdlovsk government bank at once. Ivanov was checked by law enforcement agencies, he became a defendant in several criminal cases, but in the end they were terminated. — Inset K.ru