Andrey Guskov was seduced by “matryoshka”
Preobrazhensky Court of Moscow on Monday sentenced a businessman Andrey Guskov to 3.5 years in a penal colony for the theft of shares in the largest complex in Crimea for transshipment and storage of petroleum products JSC “Marine Oil Terminal” (MNT). This was reported to TASS in the press service of the court.
The entrepreneur pleaded not guilty. He was detained in April 2021, after the owner of MNT applied to the UK with a statement about the theft of shares in the tank farm Vladimir Kruglov.
The case file refers to events that occurred between 2017 and February 2021.
According to the prosecution, Kruglov hired Guskov to advise on the purchase of the terminal from the authorities of the republic in early 2017.
Kruglov, according to the prosecution, “intended to hide his ownership of the Crimean asset for fear of falling under international sanctions,” and then Guskov offered him a scheme for acquiring MNT, which would allow him to anonymously buy and manage the company, and only hired managers controlled by the real owner. However, after the scheme began to be implemented, Guskov, as stated in the case file, secretly from the employer drew up a knowingly false agreement on the sale of shares in the tank farm. Under this agreement, ownership of MNT securities was transferred to a company controlled by Guskov, and his mother acted as its founder.
The owner of MNT Viktor Kruglov was recognized as the victim in the case. This is not his first oil project. Mr. Kruglov is the general director of Nefteproduktservis LLC, a large oil depot in the Moscow region, owned by a well-known lawyer Viktor Khmarin. In addition, Mr. Kruglov is a co-owner of three companies associated with the processing of petroleum products: Gaznefteservis, Baltic Methanol and the Baltic Gas Chemical Company.
In order to more reliably hide the ultimate beneficiary of the asset, at the suggestion of Andrey Guskov, a so-called nesting doll was created: Dolina, through its management company, first acquired the Forum trading house, and then it bought 99.7% of the shares of Gunas Firm JSC. Joint stock company and acquired in December 2019 100% of the terminal’s shares for 651.2 million rubles.
The MNT can store up to 250,000 tons of fuel, and its capacity allows it to transship up to 10 million tons of oil per year. After the reunification of Crimea with Russia, the enterprise was put up for sale. As stated in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRLE), as of December 31, 2021, the total assets of the oil terminal amounted to 1.4 billion rubles. There are no data on the founders of the enterprise in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.