The former founder of the bankrupt Razvitie Bank, Oleg Berezovsky, was arrested in absentia in Moscow in a case of embezzlement of about three billion rubles. He was put on the international wanted list. But the location of the ex-banker is unknown. And taking into account the difficult international situation, it is not worth hoping strongly that Oleg Berezovsky will be extradited to Russia, as well as a full return of funds.
absentee conclusion
At the end of April, the Basmanny Court of Moscow granted the petition of the investigation to elect a measure of restraint in the form of detention in absentia of Oleg Berezovsky, the former beneficiary of LLC KB Razvitie.
Earlier, Oleg Berezovsky, as part of a criminal investigation, was accused of embezzling bank funds in the amount of 3 billion rubles and was put on the international wanted list.
According to the court decision, the arrest will be calculated from the moment of extradition of the banker to the territory of Russia, or from the moment of detention in the territory of the Russian Federation.
Recall that the bank was registered in March 1994 as the Commercial Moscow-Karachay-Circassian Bank “Razvitie”.
In 1998, the credit institution was renamed into Commercial Bank Razvitie LLC. In June 2008, he entered the deposit insurance system. A representative office of the bank was opened in Moscow. Oleg Berezovsky owned the largest stake – 52%.
The bank was a significant financial structure of Karachay-Cherkessia. In terms of assets, it ranked first in the North Caucasus and 238th among Russian banks.
Fraudulent transactions
But in the fall of 2016, there was a scandal. The Central Bank has revoked a banking license from a credit institution. The reason for this was the high-risk credit policy, which was associated with the placement of funds in low-quality assets. “At the same time, the adequacy of own funds (capital) of the credit institution has decreased to critical values. The heads and owners of the credit institution did not take effective measures to normalize its activities,” the Bank of Russia said.
However, as Versiya reported, long before the license was revoked, financial analysts argued that Razvitie was playing a dishonest game. For example, at the end of 2015, the RAEX agency (Expert RA) downgraded the bank’s rating to B+ (low creditworthiness). At Razvitie, the profitability indicator was falling, the standard of sufficient capital was decreasing. In addition, the bank increasingly used depositors’ money in risky financial transactions.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office, conducting an audit at the request of the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, established how exactly 3 billion rubles were withdrawn through the capital’s branches of the bank.
So, a few days before the revocation of the license, the bank issued unsecured loans in amounts from 140 million to 380 million rubles to people with minimal incomes or who used lost passports. Moreover, each transaction was approved by both the credit committee and the board of directors of Razvitie.
But the bank did not require any collateral from borrowers, although large loans were issued to residents of various regions of the Russian Federation with very low incomes, i.e. obviously insolvent. And they learned about their debts only during the check.
The prosecutor’s office considered that in fact the money was “actually not transferred” to the borrowers, and the transactions made within the framework of the discovered scheme, “given their uniformity and timing”, have signs of fraudulent. At the same time, the prosecutors failed to interview the former heads of the bank, since they were absent at the places of registration. So the bank’s management did not wait for the development of events, and preferred to disappear.
Futile chores
Over the years, the Deposit Insurance Agency has been trying to recover the money that has disappeared. In 2019, the DIA, which carries out the bankruptcy proceedings at Razvitie Bank, sent an application to the Arbitration Court of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic on bringing its former managers to subsidiary liability for the bank’s obligations in the total amount of more than 2.14 billion rubles. The defendants in the case were 11 people, including Oleg Berezovsky.
But the Arbitration Court of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic refused the application of the Deposit Insurance Agency for the arrest of their property. According to the applicant, the need to take interim measures objectively follows from the significant amount of the declared property claims, as well as the need to ensure a balance of interests of the parties concerned. But the court noted that the DIA did not provide evidence of this. Also, according to the court, there was no evidence that the defendants were taking any measures to withdraw the property, and the applicant’s arguments about the possible alienation of property were not confirmed by anything.
And recently it became known that the property of the commercial bank “Razvitie” with a total value of 1.97 billion rubles is planned to be sold at auction.
In total, 14 lots were put up for auction, which include receivables. Whether the sale will be successful, time will tell.
So far, there are no official reports that law enforcement agencies still managed to contact Berezovsky’s partners. The whereabouts of Oleg Berezovsky himself is also not known. It can be assumed that he has long been comfortably settled abroad. But even if he is found, it is extremely difficult to extradite him today. It remains only to take comfort in the fact that as soon as this happens, Oleg Berezovsky will immediately be placed in custody.