Dmitry Rubinov was arrested in absentia for extorting 2.5 billion rubles.

The Moscow City Court recognized the legality of the arrest in absentia of the ex-employee of the Central Bank Dmitry Rubinov, accused of extortion and kidnapping of three people, including a two-year-old child, Kommersant writes. According to investigators, the former financier committed crimes in order to take possession of part of the assets withdrawn from Taatta Bank. It was not immediately possible to prove the involvement of Rubinov, who always denied connection with both the credit institution and the company through which he stole the funds.

Dmitry Rubinov

Consideration of the ex-banker’s lawyer’s appeal against the chosen measure of restraint took a little more than an hour, the article says. The Moscow City Court recognized the legitimacy of the decision to arrest Rubinov in absentia, previously issued by the Khamovnichesky District Court.

The charge of organizing extortion and kidnapping of three people was brought against the ex-banker in October 2021. Investigators found that the crimes were related to Rubinov’s attempt to seize part of the assets of the Yakut bank Taatta, which belonged to him, which, after the ruin in July 2018, owed more than 6 billion rubles to depositors. It turned out that part of the funds was stolen through the Moscow company “Reaktiv”, which was the defendant.

According to the materials of the case, the capital LLC bought back the debts on loans from the bank for 2.5 billion rubles. When the general director of Reaktiv found out about this, he immediately sold his shares in the capital to a certain Maxim Pivovarov. In order to force the latter to transfer the asset to the right person, Rubinov organized a criminal group that took Pivovarov, his wife and two-year-old daughter hostage. The police managed to detain five kidnappers, but they all turned out to be only performers and did not know anything about Rubinov. And the two direct curators with whom he spoke managed to hide in Turkey.

The fact that it was the ex-banker Rubinov who was behind the kidnapping and extortion was found out by the lawyer Irina Shoch, who was attracted by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) to return the troubled assets of a number of banks. At the trial in the Khamovniki District Court, the witness said that it was Dmitry Rubinov, with whom she negotiated in Turkey, who offered her to “drop this case” for a bribe. After the refusal, they began to threaten her on a mobile phone, which was the reason to take the lawyer under state protection. The witness also provided the court with an audio recording of her conversation with Dmitry Rubinov, in which he confirmed that the bank and Reaktiv belong to him. The DIA managed to stop the theft of the assets of this company with the help of an arrest imposed on the shares of LLC by arbitration.
According to Kommersant, now the name of Dmitry Rubinov, who was credited with owning Strategy Bank, PIR Bank, Tempbank, Inkarobank, UM Bank, Taatta Bank, NKB Bank, and the Central Insurance Company (CSO), of which billions of rubles were withdrawn shortly before the license was revoked, and appears in a number of criminal cases. Despite the fact that Dmitry Rubinov was never among the official owners of credit institutions, law enforcement officers believe that all dubious and illegal transactions in banks and the same CSO could be carried out in the interests of its ultimate beneficiary. The name of the former top manager of the Central Bank is also mentioned in a high-profile criminal case on fraud and bribery of the former deputy head of the “K” department of the FSB Dmitry Frolovhead of the “banking” department of the special services Kirill Cherkalin and his subordinate Andrey Vasiliev.

The Deposit Insurance Agency still managed to stop the theft of Reaktiv’s assets with the help of an arrest imposed on the company’s shares by arbitration. Rubinov himself, who was put on the international wanted list in July 2022, is hiding in Israel, whose citizenship he also holds. At the same time, he appears in a number of proceedings, also related to the withdrawal of funds from bankrupt banks.

As the head of the Russian branch of the international organization Transparency International (the organization is recognized in the Russian Federation as acting as a foreign agent) Ilya Shumanov told NEWS.ru, the chances of extradition to Russia and the subsequent arrest of Dmitry Rubinov “are almost unbelievable, because he has an Israeli passport.” Israel does not extradite its citizens, no matter what country requested it and what crime they are suspected of. In addition, Rubinov became a successful businessman in Israel, opening startups with investments of hundreds of millions of dollars. If he were in Europe, then there are more chances for extradition to the Russian Federation, even despite the political situation,” Shumanov said.
The interlocutor of NEWS.ru noted that Rubinov is “a very interesting character.” Until 2011, he served as deputy head of the Department of Banking Regulation and Supervision of the Central Bank, “worked closely with law enforcement agencies and managed to build personal contacts with employees of the” banking “department of the “K” department of the economic security service of the FSB.” From the Central Bank, he moved to commercial structures. With Rubinov and his partners, according to Ilya Shumanov, “about a dozen and a half banks that burst not without his participation” may be connected.
The banker was also mentioned in connection with the so-called Moldovan scheme, with the help of which about 500 billion rubles were withdrawn from Russia, including to Moldova and the EU countries. This scheme featured several credit institutions, including those attributed to Rubinov. In fact, as Ilya Shumanov stated, for almost a decade after his dismissal from the Central Bank, Dmitry Rubinov “was engaged in shadow banking, coming to banks before revoking their licenses in order, apparently, to withdraw funds from them in agreement with influential people from law enforcement agencies” .

In 2016, the license was revoked from Strategy Bank, which owed customers about 10 billion rubles. And it was Dmitry Rubinov who was considered its ultimate beneficiary. In any case, he is one of the defendants in the lawsuit “on bringing former controlling persons to subsidiary liability for the bank’s obligations in the total amount of 9.653 billion rubles,” filed by the DIA in July 2019 with the Moscow Arbitration Court. […] A similar fate befell in December of the same 2016 the small Elista bank NKB (a debt of more than 1.6 billion rubles), the ownership of which is also attributed to Mr. Rubinov.
In the same 2019, an equally high-profile story surfaced with the Central Insurance Company (CSO), which won a tender for insurance of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2018-2019 for 13.7 billion rubles. However, soon after that, the license was revoked from the CSO, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs lost about 250 million rubles. […] The direct bribe-giver, whom the investigation considers a businessman, and a former employee of the Central Bank Roman Paleev, was charged with giving a bribe (part 5 of article 291 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in absentia. Law enforcement agencies believe that he, along with the infamous businessman Ilya Kligman and the same Dmitry Rubinov, was allegedly the ultimate beneficiary of the CSO. It is interesting that Mr. Rubinov is not accused in cases initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but, according to some information, he is a defendant in the investigation that is now being conducted by the FSB.

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