Accomplices of Kirill Cherkalin expired

As it became known to Kommersant, the Investigative Committee of Russia (TFR) stopped the criminal prosecution of ex-bankers Vladimir Stolyarenko and Alexander Bondarenko due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. According to investigators, acting together with FSB officers, including the richest Chekist Kirill Cherkalin, the financiers stole the developers’ assets, estimated at 3.7 billion rubles. The victims believe that the statute of limitations cannot be applied, since the financiers were wanted.

In a criminal case on especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the defendants of which were the former chairman of the board of directors of JSCB Evrofinance Mosnarbank Vladimir Stolyarenko and his deputy Alexander Bondarenko, two episodes. The victims in both cases were their longtime business partners, developers Sergei Glyadelkin and Igor Tkach. It follows from the materials of the case that in 2009 the ex-bankers entered into a criminal conspiracy with the general director of Bor-reconstruction LLC Elena Glazkova (who is wanted), whose company, together with Sergey Glyadelkin’s Avenue Group, under an investment agreement with the Moscow government, built an elite house on Novy Arbat, 27.

Part of the apartments in the new building went to the Bor-reconstruction company, whose beneficiaries were also Sergey Glyadelkin and Igor Tkach.

However, later, as the case says, the defendants Glazkova, Stolyarenko and Bondarenko removed 17 apartments from the company’s property through fictitious transactions. Thus, their partners suffered damage in the amount of more than 3 billion rubles.

After that, the ex-bankers took up another new building, in which, again, under an agreement with the Moscow government, Avenue Group invested funds. In 2010, three 22-storey and two 16-storey towers were erected in the Levoberezhny metropolitan area on the site of the Khrushchevs. The sale of apartments in them was to be carried out by Yurpromconsulting LLC (UPK), in which Sergey Glyadelkin owned a 49% stake. The rest belonged to the bankers Stolyarenko and Bondarenko. As the investigation established, the latter maintained informal contacts with the employees of the central office of the FSB, who oversaw the banking sector. In particular, he was acquainted with Andrey Vasilyev, a major of the department “K” of the SEB of the special services. With the help of officers from the Lubyanka, the financiers decided to pull off the scam.

In December 2011, Major Vasiliev invited Sergei Glyadelkin to a meeting at the Wine & Crab restaurant on Nikolskaya Street. The security officer came there together with his boss, the head of the “banking” department, Kirill Cherkalin, and the deputy head of the “K” department of the SEB FSB, Dmitry Frolov. The latter informed the merchant that a criminal case was allegedly about to be initiated against him and his companion Tkach at the request of a former official of the Moscow government and their company would lose the right to further development of the Levoberezhny metropolitan area. As a result, the businessmen were forced to transfer their shares in the development company YuPK to LLC M Holding, controlled by the Chekists. The investigation also qualified these actions as fraud.

Only Dmitry Frolov, Andrey Vasilyev and Kirill Cherkalin were detained as part of the investigation launched back in 2018. According to a court decision, the latter’s assets worth 6.5 billion rubles were turned into state revenue, while during the period of service in the FSB from 2009 to 2018 he earned only 17.5 million rubles.

It should be noted that officers Frolov and Vasiliev were dismissed from service “due to loss of confidence” back in 2013 and 2014, respectively. But the order to dismiss Lieutenant Colonel Cherkalin was signed in May 2019, two weeks after his arrest.

In April 2021, the Moscow Garrison Military Court considered his case in a special order, sentencing him to seven years for fraud and taking a bribe (part 6 of article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The criminal case against Dmitry Frolov under the same articles of the Criminal Code is now being considered in the same court. But the case against ex-Major Vasiliev, who was accused only of real estate fraud, was dismissed by the court in December 2021 at his request due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Now a similar decision has been made regarding 62-year-old Vladimir Stolyarenko and 50-year-old Alexander Bondarenko. True, it was not the court that issued it, but the investigator of the ICR, who failed to find and interrogate the defendants. The first one left for Nice back in July 2014, and his colleague went to Naples in July 2018. It follows from the decision issued by Colonel of Justice Alexander Rechensky that the involvement of both defendants in the crime they were charged with is confirmed by numerous evidences, including the confessions of ex-Chekists Cherkalin and Vasiliev.

At the same time, the investigation concluded that a ten-year statute of limitations had expired since the moment the defendants committed the crime. The same resolution also removed the arrest from the multi-billion dollar property of Vladimir Stolyarenko and his relatives, imposed by the courts to compensate for the alleged damage. His list occupies several typewritten sheets. Basically, it contains land plots, mansions and some administrative and office real estate on Rublevka – in the prestigious village of Nikolina Gora near Moscow and the village of Zhukovka, as well as about a dozen apartments in the center of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In turn, the victims did not agree with the decision of the ICR, they intend to appeal it. According to their calculations, the statute of limitations for the first crime expires only in September 2025, and for the second in January 2028.

“From the plot of the prosecution it follows that the end date of the crimes are December 8, 2011 and November 11, 2013. For some reason, the investigation considered July 2, 2009 and December 8, 2011 as such, – lawyer Irina Shoch, representing the interests of Sergei Glyadelkin, told Kommersant. decision to search for the accused. However, the investigator came to the conclusion that Stolyarenko and Bondarenko, who had gone abroad before the initiation of the case, were not aware of their criminal prosecution, did not evade the investigation and the court, and, therefore, there were no grounds for suspending the statute of limitations.”