The Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow sentenced Farid Akhverdiyev, the former founder of ZAO Yunkom, in absentia to eight years in prison.
The former director of the Yunost Hotel was found guilty of embezzling shares worth 170 million rubles. at the capital’s theater “Lenkom”, with which he did a joint business. The businessman himself left for his native Baku long before the initiation of a criminal case. However, the damage can be repaid through the sale of his capital apartment under arrest, estimated at 164 million rubles.
A criminal case on the fact of particularly large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) was initiated by the Moscow police in July 2016 at the request of the director of the Lenkom Theater Mark Varshaver. At the same time, this story has nothing to do directly with the theater. It is about a showdown around the metropolitan hotel “Youth” (Khamovnichesky Val St., 34), the director of which since the 1980s of the last century was Farid Akhverdiyev. In 1993, the hotel was privatized, and Mark Varshaver allegedly helped Mr. Akhverdiev in this. In return, the theater received 250 shares in CJSC Yunkom, becoming a co-founder of the hotel complex.
However, subsequently Lenkom had to part with the shares, since the Accounts Chamber found it impossible for the theater to participate in commercial activities.
Since then, the sides have looked at the situation differently.
Mr. Akhverdiyev claimed that he had allegedly paid off Lenkom in full for the shares, while representatives of the latter say that the former business partner sold the entire block of shares worth almost 415 million rubles without their knowledge.
By the way, it was precisely this amount that appeared in the investigation that had begun, but in the final version, the businessman was charged with embezzlement of only 170 million rubles, that is, part of the shares owned by the theater. This happened, as the police established, and the court agreed with this, by “abusing the trust of the theater management.” In particular, the case file states that the defendant Akhverdiev “forged an agreement on the transfer of 250 ordinary registered non-documentary shares.”
In April 2017, Farid Akhverdiev was charged in absentia: a couple of years before the initiation of a criminal case, he left for Azerbaijan. In May of the same year, the businessman was put on the international wanted list, and the Tagansky District Court of Moscow arrested him in absentia.
It should be noted that in April 2018, Farid Akhverdiyev was charged with another episode of fraud. It was already about the deception of the Singaporean company Etk Invest (S’pore) Pte ltd.
It was to her, according to the investigation, that the defendant Akhverdiyev allegedly sold the entire block of shares of Yunkom CJSC. However, according to Kommersant’s information, this case is not discussed in the verdict, and it can be assumed that it was separated into a separate proceeding.
During the debate, the state prosecutor demanded eight years in a penal colony for Farid Akhverdiyev. It was precisely this punishment that the court handed down to him, deciding to recover the entire amount of damage caused to the injured party. The latter can be repaid through the sale of a luxurious Moscow apartment of an Azerbaijani businessman worth 164 million rubles. She was arrested in September 2019, when it turned out that back in 2018, Farid Akhverdiyev allegedly sold this house to his wife and it was put up for sale.