The Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow sentenced Alexander Gadalov, ex-general director of Almatel, a large telecommunications holding, to seven years in prison. His former subordinate Konstantin Antonevich received four years. The court found them guilty of fraud in the supply of telecommunications equipment for holding companies, as well as a scam with promissory notes of the Telephone 365 company. The amount of damage in the case is 550 million rubles. The court fully satisfied only the claims of legal entities. The demands of the well-known businessman Alexander Udodov, who was recognized as a victim in the case, were satisfied by a little more than half.
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court has been considering the materials of the case against the leaders of Almatel since November 2021. As a result, the court fully agreed with the point of view of the prosecution, recognizing as proved the guilt of Alexander Gadalov and Konstantin Antonevich in three episodes of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), which they were charged with. The former general director of Almatel was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony, and Mr. Antonevich to four years. Mr. Gadalov did not plead guilty, but his accomplice partially admitted, emphasizing that he had no intent to embezzle funds and he only followed the instructions of his boss.
The court was critical of the testimony of defense witnesses, who insisted that the telecommunications equipment, which, according to the investigation, was not supplied by the defendants, was in fact bought by them, but was pledged to Vokbank. According to the court, these testimonies and the conclusions of the specialist involved by the defense are based only on the expert’s own opinion and contradict the totality of the evidence collected by the investigation. On this basis, the court came to the conclusion that although the equipment was documented, it was not actually supplied to its buyers – Tsifra Odin and Kompaniya 2Kom.
The court also found the defendants involved in embezzlement of funds from businessman Alexander Udodov, who bought promissory notes from the Telephone 365 company. Moreover, the issuer, as follows from the court decision, was controlled by Mr. Gadalov.
The court fully satisfied civil claims against convicts by legal entities for a total amount of 98 million rubles. At the same time, the claim of Mr. Udodov, declared by him in the amount of 559.2 million rubles, was partially satisfied by the district court, recovering only 308.2 million rubles from the convicts.
The investigation of this case, as previously reported by Kommersant, was carried out by the investigative department of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central District of Moscow. All three episodes that appear in the case refer to 2016-2017. As follows from the materials of the investigation, at the end of December 2016, Alexander Gadalov, who at that time held the post of managing director of Alma Group LLC, together with the general director of this company Alexander Parkhomenko (he is wanted) organized a criminal group whose goal was to steal money funds of firms that were part of the Almatel holding. A little later, Antonevich, the CEO of the Telefon 365 provider controlled by him, joined the attackers.
The Almatel holding, we recall, was created by the Kazakh Alma Group, it includes providers Tsifra One, Kompaniya 2Kom, Setel, TDS +, etc. The holding operates in Moscow, the Moscow Region, Krasnodar and Tver , providing services of broadband access (BBA) to the Internet, pay TV and telephony. Its subscriber base is about 250 thousand people.
In accordance with the plan developed by Messrs. Gadalov and Parkhomenko, according to the case, on January 12, 2017, an agreement was concluded between Tsifra Odin LLC and Telefon 365 LLC for the supply of equipment in the amount of 78.2 million rubles, which in the end did not was delivered. According to the same scheme, the investigation believes, a scam was carried out with the supply of equipment for the 2Kom Company. In this case, the amount of theft amounted to 19.6 million rubles.
And the biggest episode of the case is connected with Alexander Udodov.
In December 2017, Alexander Parkhomenko, according to investigators, being acquainted with Mr. Udodov and knowing that he had free funds and a desire to increase them, offered the businessman to buy promissory notes of the Telephone 365 company in the amount of 450 million rubles. As Mr. Parkhomenko assured, the investor will then make good money on interest on the redemption of securities, and the money received from Mr. Udodov will be used to purchase new assets. However, none of this happened. Having executed the transaction on December 27, 2017, the issuer paid off part of the bills within two years, but then refused to do so. All attempts by Mr. Udodov to get his money back came to nothing.
After the verdict was passed, the victim was dissatisfied with the decision of the court. “Oddly enough, but the verdict not only did not restore the rights of Mr. Udodov, but, on the contrary, legalized the embezzlement of his funds by the foreign company DSFC (the current owner of Almatel. – “Kommersant”) to the maximum extent possible, removing persons who, in in reality, they stole the funds of my principal, ”explained the representative of the businessman Vyacheslav Efimenko. In addition, Mr. Efimenko noted, the court illegally removed him from the process, referring to his status as a witness, although he left the others who had the same status. Also, according to the representative of Mr. Udodov, the businessman’s request to return the case to the prosecutor was rejected three times without justification, and the validity of this decision is not reflected in the verdict. And finally, the court, according to Mr. Efimenko, ignored the possibility of repaying the damage to Mr. Udodov at the expense of the arrested property of the Telefon 365 company, a 19.5% stake in Tsifra Odin LLC worth about 250 million rubles. and rights of claim in the amount of 230 million rubles. to the Eurasia Investments management company, where, according to the businessman, the money he paid for the bills is located. Instead, Mr. Udodov’s spokesman emphasized, liquid assets are transferred to other organizations or remain under arrest. “These and other facts cast doubt on the legality and validity of the verdict, since it does not answer the main question: who actually stole Mr. Udodov’s money,” Vyacheslav Efimenko noted. “My client and I believe that the basic principles of justice have been violated, which forces us to appeal the verdict.”